“As luck would have it, the dinghy’s owner came out for a late afternoon’s fishing on the high tide and took it from me on the beach. A couple of guineas satisfied him as a loaner’s fee and I escaped total immersion.” He took the mug and inhaled deeply. “Ah, I’ve been dreaming of this for hours.”

“I think we should spend the night here,” Petra stated, looking at him through the steam curling from her own mug.

“Do you?” He looked around the cozy room. “Apart from the obvious, is there another reason?”

“Yes.” She cupped her hands around the mug. “We have to find a way through this morass. I love you, Guy, with all my heart, but I won’t change my convictions, my loyalties, I can’t possibly. And you won’t change yours, but perhaps, here, in this neutral space we could try to find a way to love and live with each other despite.”

Guy looked at her for a long moment. “As it happens,” he said slowly, “I find that under my wife’s influence my convictions seem to have undergone a change.”

Petra stared at him, her hazel eyes wide. “Do you mean—”

“I mean that until you entered my life I had not really given much thought to the idea of women and the vote,” he interrupted. “I couldn’t really see why you would want it, but Clothilde explained it to me.”

“Clothilde?”

He nodded. “It was not her intention, quite the opposite, I believe, but I found the argument against her argument quite convincing.”

“Oh. That sounds very convoluted,” Petra said hesitantly.

“It’s actually very simple,” he responded, a slow smile spreading from his eyes to his mouth. “Oh, my darling love, I don’t want to change one tiny iota about you. Everything about your redoubtable, stubborn, unconventional, reckless, competent, combative, loyal and loving self informs my lifeblood. I can’t imagine what kind of life I was living before you came into it.”

Petra felt a little spurt of inner warmth that had little to do with the mulled wine. She looked at him, wondering if what he was saying could be true. “You would support universal suffrage?”

“I have every intention of doing so,” he responded. “I’ll discuss it with Asquith and Campbell Bannerman when we return to London. Damn, now what?” He turned to the door at a brisk knock.

“Here’s the dressing gown, ma’am.” The maid looked at Guy in his shirtless state and looked away hastily, blushing. She put the parcel on the bed and turned back to the door. “Is there anything else, my lady?”

“Is there by any chance a gentleman’s haberdashery in Weston?” Petra asked on a bubble of laughter. “His lordship has need of a dressing gown too.” She held out her purse. “Take what you need from there.”