<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><em>My Dear Lord Allenby,<br/><br/>May this missive find you in good spirits and health.  I was delighted to receive your letter.  Please be assured that I will arrive at your office in Coenti’s Slip, Portsmouth, Hampshire on or about the twenty-third of this month.  I will have enough provisions and equipment for several months and not to exceed five hundred pounds.<br/><br/>With best regards,<br/>Margaret Middleton<br/>Widow of the Late Dr. George Middleton</em></span><br/><br/><div align="center">~ ~ ~</div><br/>Maggie sealed the post with a sigh of frustration.  Whatever had taken this Lord Allenby to take so long to respond to her?  Now she had only a bit more than a couple of weeks to gather supplies and make her way to Hampshire.  At least the trip was temporary, and the servants would be able to handle the upkeep of the house.  She would not have to concern herself with boarding it up.<br/><br/>Upon receipt of his invitation a month ago, she had hired a private investigator to tell her information about the man who would be hosting the trip.  She was no fool.  Although some information had been unearthed about Ian Allenby himself, most of the information gotten was about members of his family.  In the end, though, it did not matter.  He did not seem to be deranged or otherwise dangerous, nor did he seem to be targeting her for her small fortune.  It was a chance she would have to take.<br/><br/>Her next letter was to her mother-in-law:<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><em>Dear Mother Middleton,<br/><br/>It is my hope that this missive finds you well.  I have wonderful news.  I have joined a mission to South America.  Hopefully I will now be able to find out what George's fate was three years ago.  I am still filled with sorrow at the loss of your son and my husband, and I wish for nothing more than to find answers as to his disappearance.  I will be gone for several months.  Please do not worry yourself with how I am faring.  George always admired my resourcefulness and independence.  I shall be fine.<br/><br/>With warmest regards,<br/>Always,<br/>Maggie </em></span><br/><br/><div align="center">~ ~ ~</div><br/><div class="floatright">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/8/85/Margaret_Middleton01.jpg)</div>It was on the twenty-third of the month that Maggie found herself dressed in white traveling clothes and standing with a small valise in front of an office.<em>Go on, Maggie,</em>she urged herself.  But the Queen's honest truth was that she was nervous.  She was nervous about meeting Lord Allenby and the scientists she would be journeying with, and also about venturing into unknown, primitive lands.<br/><br/>But the thing that filled her very being with apprehension was something else entirely.<em>George.</em>What had been her husband's fate?  Had he come to his end peacefully, or had his death been something horrific?  Maggie had no doubt that her husband was with the Lord.  When he had embarked on his journey three years ago, she had been afraid for his safety, but at the same time, she understood that his heart and soul had been filled with adventure.  George had thirsted for the thrill of discovery every bit as much as young wife did.  Maggie had only stayed behind because her own father had been on his death bed and she had been unable to leave him.<br/><br/>As the weeks became months with no word of her husband's fate, Maggie had become frightened.  She had spent a considerable sum paying a team of investigators to go to South America to trace the steps of her husband.  Fourteen months after she had seen George for the last time, the private detectives had returned and explained that he had disappeared into the Amazonian jungles and was to be presumed dead.  And indeed, she had never heard from him again.  It was how Maggie new that he was gone.  Had he been alive, he would have come back to her.<br/><br/>In the two years since she had been widowed, she had devoted her life to continuing his work, attending scientific conferences and participating in digs at archaeological sites in Britain and on the Continent.  Well, after a suitable period of mourning, of course.  Now, at age twenty-six, M. Middleton had truly become a known scientist in the field of paleontology in her own right.  The prospect of living gigantic lizards,<em>dinosaurs,</em>excited her, but she was quite aware that Lord Allenby's musings were fanciful at best and fantastical or deceptive at worst.  Had it not been for the possibility to discovering George's fate, she would not have wasted her time or her funds on this trek.<br/><br/>And yet, here she was.  She adjusted her white gloves and took a step forward, her spine held stiff.  Turning the door handle, she stepped into the office.  Her tone clipped but a smile on her face, she addressed a gentleman.  "I'm here for Lord Allenby.  My name is Maggie.  Margaret Middleton.  I do believe he is expecting me."