He made love to her that night for the first time since the invasion of Westminster and it brought some return to normality between them, enough at least for them to present a united front when their guests arrived the following morning.

Petra was as charming and efficient a hostess as she knew how to be and Guy was her equal as a host. Politics were not discussed when the whole party was together. It was as if the men considered it taboo around their wives, although Petra couldn’t fail to notice the occasional speculative glance sent her way when the general conversation touched lightly on the government, but it was only ever a fleeting moment. For the most part she concentrated her attentions on the ladies of the party, who required some form of entertaining while the men were participating in a shooting party on Saturday morning, playing billiards or closeted for many hours in the library discussing detailed political issues.

Only once was Petra forced to bite her tongue in the drawing room after the ladies had withdrawn from the dining table, leaving the gentlemen to their port and cigars, and the wife of Viscount Barber brought up the subject of the WSPU. She expressed her disgust for the behavior of women of their own social standing who dared to shame their sex by blatantly breaking the law and behaving in a manner more suited to a peasant mob than the affluent wives of powerful and influential men, and it became rapidly clear that she was not alone in her opinion. None of their remarks seemed addressed directly to Petra, so she assumed her own participation in the Union was not generally known. Probably the ladies didn’t read the news sections of the papers, she thought with some derision. Their interests would be focused on the engagements and the court pages.

She maintained her hostess smile, poured tea and coffee, passed around sweets and engaged in social chitchat as if it were all that mattered in her world.

Guy was still playing billiards when she went up to bed, and she had turned the lights down low and was feigning sleep when he finally came up. She didn’t think she could bear to discuss anything about the drawing room conversation with him, and it was all she could think of at the moment, her complete bewilderment at the pathetic apathy of her own sex. She didn’t think he was fooled by her pretense at sleeping, but he had the delicacy not to invade her silence. He was up at dawn the next morning for the day’s shoot and Petra murmured a sleepy goodbye when he bent to kiss her on his way out of the bedroom.

“You and the women will be joining us for lunch by the lake,” he said. “Babbit has the lunch organized and carriages will bring you all at noon.”