‘I never told you her name, and I’m not telling you now.’

‘But you won’t invite her to come along with us, will you?’

‘No, I promise I’ll confine my meetings with her to fleeting assignations wherever we drop anchor.’

Grace gave a scream, chiefly because she couldn’t decide if I was serious or not. I decided to leave it that way. ‘Cindy’ might be useful.

I had no idea, then, just how useful.

We set off from Southampton and went across to Cherbourg on the first day, then across the Bay of Biscay and down the coast of Portugal to the Mediterranean.

We had a good time, with plenty of dinner and dancing, card-playing, wheeling and dealing-and flirting. I solved that problem by flirting madly with almost every woman aboard. Especially Jenny.

She was safe. I could romance her without fear of being hog-tied. But then Charles got a bit tense-actually said I was overdoing it. He responded by dancing smoochily with Selina for a whole evening. Then it was Jenny’s turn to get tense.

They mended matters by vanishing into their cabin for three days, and emerging wreathed in smiles.

That was how I wanted to look when I found ‘her’. It wasn’t going to happen with Selina. I was beginning to wonder if it would happen with anyone.

In Gibraltar Charles and I managed to jump ship for a few hours, returning with the dawn. He spread tipsy hints about a lady I was supposed to have met ashore, then clapped his hand over his mouth as if realising that he’d said too much.

Grace gave me a look that would have shrivelled a lesser man.

We pulled the same stunt in Naples and Venice. Then it was time to start back down the Adriatic coast, with Grace snapping at me and demanding to know just how stupid I thought she was.

‘If I thought you were stupid I’d be less scared,’ I told her truthfully.