She heard the distant booms and bangs from the northern shores of France, and felt an icy prickle of dread run down her spine as she looked up to watch the unceasing flow of Allied planes taking off and landing at the nearby aerodrome. Delaney was right when he’d said he would be in the middle of the fiercest, most dangerous and daring battle of the war, and her heart clenched at the thought of him leading his men from the landing craft onto those beaches and into the hell-fire of enemy guns.

The war reports being broadcast every day on the special radio frequency said there were few casualties, but she suspected that was government propaganda – a ruse to keep morale high amongst the civilians – for surely, with so many thousands of men involved, there would be untold numbers of dead and wounded?

She tenderly folded the letter back into the envelope. She would write back as soon as she returned to the office, and send the letter off with all the other post. She didn’t want him distracted and becoming careless when so much was at stake, and she couldn’t bear the thought that if she delayed in replying, he might be killed and would never know how very much she loved him.

Sarah trembled inside, her emotions a mixture of joy and dread, for surely such happiness wasn’t possible in these uncertain, deadly times. To dream of a future together was almost tempting fate – and yet there had to be hope, for without it there was nothing.

She took a deep breath and let it out on a tremulous sigh as she realised Philip and her father, if they were still alive, might be thinking exactly the same; living on hope, surviving with only one thought on their minds – to return home to the women who loved them.

What Delaney was asking of her, and what her heart yearned for, would break the promise she’d made to Philip. Could she ever be truly happy with Delaney while living with the knowledge that Philip might have defied the odds simply because he believed she was waiting for him still?

She closed her eyes, battling the demons that had been her constant companions since the moment she’d met Delaney. She’d tried so hard not to be drawn to him, holding fiercely to the promises she’d made to Philip in the belief that he’d come through – and yet as time had gone on with no word of what might have happened to the man she’d last seen at the Singapore docks, that belief had dwindled and Delaney had crept into her heart.