by: Christina

    Marguerite slipped quietly out the door of her cabin, joining Percy in gazing at the brilliant ocean sunset.  They stood on their own private deck, as he’d acquired first class accommodations for the trip from Spain to England.  Truthfully, Marguerite would have been just as happy in third class on a packet boat, as long as he was with her.  Percy turned to her with a playful smile on his face.  “Now that you’ve seen what we do, Margot, do you think me truly mad?”

    “Mad?” she questioned.

    “Sleeping on the hard ground, tied up and without food, for no other reason than to prove that we can,” he supplied. “Lud!  I wonder at it, myself.”

    She graced him with her warmest smile.  “I think you do it for other reasons as well, Lord Blakeney.”

    He took her slender hands in his.  “Do you, dear lady?”

    She nodded.  “I am willing to admit, though, that I also find the adventure… well… exhilarating.”

    He shot her a perplexed look. “Begad, Madame!  Do not tell me that I have created another of us monsters!”

    She merely laughed away his comment.  “I especially like the part where we sail off together, with nothing more to do for days than sit inside a lavish cabin.”

    He planted a slow kiss on her jaw line, whispered in her ear, “I can think of other things to do than sit.”  Then he sobered, and pulled her into a crushing embrace.  “Margot, my Margot!  My angel.”

    She pulled away from him just enough to gaze up at his face and give him a mock-frown.  “I am yours, but I am certainly no angel.”

    “Ah, but you are.  You are a perfect tyrant, m’dear, but you are also an angel.  Did you not note the favorable results of this mission?”

    With the dying sun painting everything pale in shades of deep gold, they both seemed haloed creatures descended from heaven.  As Marguerite laughed off her husband’s comments and laid her head contentedly against his chest once more, he whispered softly into her hair, “My guardian angel,” and the sun set upon the joined figures who blazed like St. Elmo’s fire.

Fin

"Come, meet my eyes one moment more.  Our eyes are different than before."