She lowered her head and let her long fair hair fall over her burning cheeks. ‘I wanted to spend every last moment with him, you see, and had planned to walk back along the road instead of over the hills as I usually do from the estate. The fog wasn’t that bad when his plane took off, so I thought I’d be all right.’

She dared to look up. ‘I know he’s married, and I know it’s shameful to feel like this when I should be thinking only of Philip – but I can’t help it.’

‘There can be no future in it, Sarah,’ said Peggy, lovingly tucking a loose strand of hair behind Sarah’s ear. ‘So why torture yourself by going to see him?’

‘I needed to know if it had all been a bit of a fling – just a mild flirtation between two lonely people far from their loved ones who’d made rather more of it than it warranted – or something deeper.’ She took in a ragged breath and blinked back her tears. ‘In a way, I wish we hadn’t met today, because it’s just made everything far more complicated – for both of us.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, dear,’ said Cordelia crisply. ‘But if you will play with fire you’ll get burnt. It was unfair of him to keep writing to you – let alone turn up here and disrupt everything. I hope he realises how very difficult he’s made things for you.’

Sarah nodded. ‘It’s difficult for both of us, but we had to grab this last chance of seeing one another. None of us know what the future holds, especially with all this talk of an Allied invasion – and it would have been simply awful if we’d not met, and something happened to him.’

Peggy drew Sarah into a gentle embrace. ‘We do understand, really we do. But we’re worried about you. I wish you’d confided in me, I wouldn’t have been cross.’

Sarah hugged her back and then dried her eyes. ‘I know, but I was scared you might think less of me for falling in love with a married man when I’m already engaged.’

‘Silly goose,’ Peggy chided softly. ‘When it comes to matters of the heart we have no defence against our feelings. Of course I don’t think less of you.’ She smiled into her eyes. ‘I’m just glad you and Rita got back safely – but what was she doing all the way out there?’

‘She’d been on the hills overlooking the airfield to watch the planes coming in and going out. She told me she felt closer to Matt by just being there, but as the fog rolled in and she realised it would be too dangerous to ride back cross-country, she headed down to the valley to take the road home.’