Ooh, interesting point about Scarlet Pimpernel. I read it for the first time about a month ago and hadn't gotten into deep thoughts about it yet. (No worries about me giving anything away for Yuletide, as I haven't offered it.)

This is probably more humorous than what you're going for but now I have the idea of Marguerite being in a play again because she misses acting, and forcing Percy to take a role as well because if he's got all that talent, he should use it on the stage as well as real life (or as real as his life gets, anyway).