Chapter 1

Scarlett was beyond mad, she was almost foaming at the mouth. Her feet were crushing the dark pink carpet of her bedroom, her hands in fists, her nails breaking the skin of her palms. Although she didn't have her corset on, her lungs were burning. She opened her mouth to pull some air in because, somehow, breathing normally was impossible.

"That's where the bastard is" she was thinking. "He ran away, he ran to his whore, the miserable, utter bastard".

She wanted to scream, wanted to claw at the drapes, the covers of her bed, she wanted to get on her knees and scratch the plush carpet, the floors underneath it, the furniture. She wanted to break every piece of china, every mirror, every window of the house. This house he had build for her. Did he think she cared? She had her own money, she could build another house, even grander. She wanted to rip out the stuffing from the chairs and the couches and see it stretching out like the intestines of that badly wounded soldier they had to nurse during the war. Well, Melly did. Scarlett ran away from the room and almost threw up in a clean basinet in the hallway of the hospital.

She wanted…

"I know" she suddenly thought, "I'll kill him!"

"And his whore, while I'm at it."

And suddenly her breathing returned to normal and she rang for Prissy. The girl couldn't even look her in the eye as she entered the room.

"Take out my green velvet riding suit", Scarlett said, and she had such a mad look on her face that the girl told the other servants, a few days afterwards, after the events unfurled, that she was sure in that very moment life in the Butler house as she knew it was going to end.

"Tell Pork to saddle my horse, I don't have time to wait for the carriage", she told Prissy in voice so changed that the girl wondered for a second if not a bad spirit, like the ones she heard the reverend in church talk about, was possessing her mistress.

After a fashion, a stone faced Scarlett was riding the streets of Atlanta, looking as she had just stepped out of the fashion plates of the new Harper's Bazar. Maybelle Picard, walking on the side of the road, lifted her head and sighted, seeing the pretty clothes Scarlett was wearing. Again. And, although Scarlett's taste verged on the extreme at times, truth to be told, this riding habit was as classy as one could be, made of dark green velvet, with small gold buttons and the prettiest beige lace collar, high on the neck, making her green eyes pop and her waist look as tiny as a sixteen years old. And that little top hat, tipped to the front just so, with the cutest veil, speckled with tiny black dots, was to die for.

Maybelle, who had never had such a tiny waist, not even as a young girl, courtesy of her mother, the hefty and pious Mrs. Merriwether, sighted again.

Mrs. Merriwether herself elbowed her.

"Heathens", she murmured.

"Yes, mother", answered Maybelle quickly.

Mrs. Butler nodded coldly in their direction, looking like a queen on top of her very big horse, and then looked forward with eyes so dismissive, Mrs. Merrywether swore to herself then and there never to talk to her again.

Scarlett was hot underneath her two voluminous petticoats, and the buttons of the black cotton breeches every respectable woman wore beneath her riding habit, in the spirit of preserving modesty in case you were unlucky enough to get thrown of your horse, were leaving imprints on the inside of her calves. She had taken a riding crop with her, God knows why, everyone knew crops were made for riding in the country, not on the crowded streets of Atlanta, but looking at it, all shiny and new, she smiled. She knew exactly on whose hide the crop was going to land.

What happened two nights ago? What had happened? Something did, and Scarlett's mind went around in circles trying to comprehend something that continued to escape her. He had hurt her. Well, a little. She had the imprint of his fingers around her wrists and a few…

"…bites? I don't remember him using his teeth" on the white skin of her bosom. And she enjoyed it. And then he told her how he loved her, and how beautiful she was, and how he had wanted her for years, and how she was his and his alone, and touched her in some places she couldn't even think about without almost feeling faint, and moved above her in a way that made her bite the pillow so her scream wouldn't wake the children, and then she felt like she was falling in the most delightful way, as if beneath her fluffy clouds were waiting to catch her. But no, Rhett's hands were holding her and his fingers were caressing her back and when she opened her eyes, she saw Rhett's eyes looking at her with something akin to desperation and surprise… And then he started moving again, and she had the vague impression an earthquake was shaking the house, and she fell again, harder.

"Was that only in my mind?", she wondered.

She had fallen asleep in his arms, and he woke her at some point, and the whole dance began anew, with even better results. The next morning, alone in her bed, and convinced that Rhett was downstairs, eating with the children and preparing to bring her a tray with her breakfast, she realised she was happy. Happy as she had not been in years. The commotions of last night had been…welcomed? Nice? Whatever words were used to describe her mood on that beautiful spring morning, after such a night, were not in the vocabulary of a proper lady. And she giggled and felt as naughty as she did as a child, when she put jam in Gerald slippers, on a dare by the Tarleton twins.

Rhett was going to open the door, make some inappropriate joke about their unorthodox marriage and she was going to explain that the mill thing was a big misunderstanding, and tonight she was going to meet him in the hallway with her wrapper loosely tied and the kissing and staring in each others eyes and all the unmentionable things that happen behind the closed doors of the bedroom were going to happen again. And tomorrow she would wake up happy again. It was that simple.

Well, no. It did not happen like that. Everything went downhill afterwards. Rhett was not at home, did not come back for two nights, Mammy was looking at her strangely, and whatever hopes she had, hopes she could not formulate in words in her mind or understand in her heart, were gone.

And now he was going to pay.