Disclaimer: I own nothing of GWTW, because if I did, the sequels would be...different.
Rhett was in New York when he read about the news. A business associate had written it as an interesting aside, boxed in between stock options.
Speaking of upheavals, Atlanta's in a stir right now. Some of those Old Guard rebs have been taken down a notch or two. A couple of them will be swinging from a noose. I feel bad Mrs. Wilkes will be a widow, she always was sweet, but I feel worse for Mrs. Kennedy. Her husband was killed in…
"What's the matter?"
Rhett swiped his face clean and glanced up, but it was too late. His sister had already seen too much. That was the problem with living with someone who not only shared his face, but his expressions. Rosemary always knew too much, understood too well, and asked too quickly. Over six months into this new arrangement, and he still hadn't adapted to the change; a creature of solitary habits, he had been slow to remember what it was to breathe alongside family.
Rosemary's eyes swam with worry, and she shakily set her cup of coffee down on the table.
"It's not from—"
"No," Rhett cut in. "No, I wouldn't even bother opening a letter from Father. And with any luck, the next time we hear anything about him, it will be from reading the obituaries."
Rosemary didn't gasp as she would have done before. Instead, a soft pink prickled over her cheeks and her eyes glittered. She dropped her gaze and drummed her fingers on the table. The gesture of restraint, of elegance, was so reminiscent of his mother that Rhett's throat constricted. For a sharp moment the only sound was the hollow tap of finger on wood.
"Who's the letter from?" asked Rosemary.
"A potential investor." Rhett coughed and meticulously folded the letter, slipping it into his coat pocket. The pause gave him the time to decide. The decision was effortless, as easy as a sigh. "How would you like to visit Atlanta, Rosie?"
His sister looked up.
"Truly?"
"Truly."
She smiled and nodded, clasping her hands beneath her chin, all sadness and hesitation forgot.
"When? We have the concert next week, and the—"
"In an hour."
Rhett laughed and stood up. Perhaps their expressions weren't so similar. He grabbed a muffin off the table, and whistling, told Rosemary to hurry. He had some tickets to buy.
~0~0~
The April sun glowed a hazy orange, drenching the familiar brick house in a tangerine hue. Rhett stepped down from the hack, paid the driver, and waved it off. He would find his own way back to the hotel.
It had been a long two days. Not since that breakfast conversation with Rosemary had Rhett taken a moment to relax. A hundred demands had stolen his time; letters to send, favors to call in, and strings to pull, or more often than not, to yank and tug. In those rare moments of rest, his mind had whirred with possibilities, his imagination soaked in anticipation. But the minutes for reflection had been few. The last several hours he had spent in a grueling, annoying battle to win a fair trial for a man whom he despised, a man who shouldn't even be living in Atlanta. Rhett smirked at the irony, grinding his teeth and feeling the exhaustion in his bones.
It wasn't for Wilkes that Rhett had made the effort. No tears would be shed by him if the blockhead ended up on the end of a rope. Trading amusement for exertion, Rhett had shirked off his usual indolence for one simple reason, for one very simple person: Melanie Wilkes.
After staring into his mother's dying eyes, in them despair laced with pain, innocence shattered into acceptance, Rhett had sworn to do whatever he could to never see those eyes again. They would haunt him until the day he died, and he was not a superstitious man. But men will always be boys to their mothers, and during those final breaths of Eleanor Butler's life, her hard, cynical son had rediscovered some of that softness and trust of youth, only to have it swiftly dashed to pieces when his mother's lips had bled white and her body had gone cold.
The brittle moment had transformed Rhett, slightly but surely. He had wept then, clinging to her corpse, the guilt of knowing he had caused some of that despair, inflicted some of that pain, nearly breaking him. He would have killed his father, if his brother had not stopped him. The next few days would always be a drunken blur.
The funeral had been disastrous, the grave the least of the fractures. Rhett had looked around him that cold morning and for the first time in a long time, seen people as people, instead of actors in the great farce of life. His sister was hardly recognizable as a young woman, her body emaciated and her skin stretched as an old hag's. His brother was shrunken, and his father, his father was a wasted miser, a shriveled man, not the Great Lear; a tyrant without a country.
Before his mother's coffin had thudded into the ground, Rhett had whisked his sister away. His brother was a lost cause. Rosemary was the only one worth saving. From New Orleans to Paris, from London to New York, Rhett had lavished affection and adoration on his sister, and she had blossomed. She became the one true thing in his life. More, she became his redemption.
Standing at Miss Pitty's gate, his hand on the latch, Rhett thought of his sister and laughed. Rosemary had been too excited to sleep on the train, giddy for the smell of honeysuckle and the sound of southern voices, but since they had arrived, she was too exhausted to stay awake. She was sprawled across her bed, worn out from the whirlwind of travel. Without even unlacing her shoes, she had collapsed there this morning, and when he had checked on her an hour ago, she had thrown a pillow at him and pulled up the cover. All the better, he had shrugged. He needed to make this visit alone.
Rhett's eyes wandered over the house to the upstairs window. The glass was dark, but he thought he caught a flurry of movement, a flutter of pale magnolia. He breathed in the cool late afternoon air, filling his lungs with false calm and secret hopes. Smoothing his jacket, he pushed through the gate, and sweeping aside the blossoms and dried leaves with his long strides, he walked to the porch.
He knocked on the door once and it immediately swung open. His gut clenched. His breath hitched. Rhett slid his gaze up and over her body, spreading a slow grin at the blush on her skin. He met her eyes—lusty, defiant, and somehow, despite all the heartache she had endured and exacted, innocent.
With those green eyes flashing at him, he wondered again how he had stayed away for so long. It had been almost a year. Normally he hated her in black, but not today. Today it meant she was a free woman, and he a free man. Tender words rose to his lips, and instead of coating them in vinegar, he would let them fall. His mother's death had taught him more than one thing.
Scarlett smiled, almost shyly, and started to invite him to come inside. It was too much. It had been too long. Rhett grabbed her wrist. Her pulse raced under his grip and her skin was warm.
"Rhett!" she cried, startled but not angry. "What are you—"
"I love you Scarlett, and I think it's time you knew."
Before she could respond, he twirled her into the house and closed the door, pinning her to the wall with a kiss.
~0~0~
Rhett pushed the kiss deeper, needing Scarlett to submit. And at last, she did. Her fists stilled. Her body shuddered. Her lips melted into his. The softness of her molded into his hard embrace, and the heat spiked. As the flame licked higher and hotter, Rhett knew it was his turn to yield. He allowed himself one more fevered touch, before pulling his lips back, sucking in her scent as he drew away.
"Look at me," he said.
Slowly she lifted her blazing eyes to him. They were wild, pools of green light teeming with condemnation and disgust. A surge of heady possessiveness overcame Rhett, and he wound his arms more tightly around her.
"How dare you," she began.
"Oh but I do dare," he swiftly cut in.
She started to wriggle against his hold, bucking and swaying to throw off his weight. But he leaned into the wall, pressing her closer to his chest. Each arch of her torso and twist of her hips drove a nail of desire though his gut.
"Take your filthy hands off me."
"Tempting, darling, but not nearly as tempting as you."
Scarlett finished struggling with a fantastic splutter; her chest rocking provocatively, her face colored in a pretty tableau of crimson and alabaster. Suddenly her body wilted and she huffed in frustration.
She rolled her head back, her eyes spitting fire. Only the burn Rhett felt wasn't from shame. It was the dull, constant simmer in his blood that she always stirred. He dug his nails into his wet palm for some release.
"I despise you," she fumed.
"All the more reason to keep you," he answered.
Their eyes locked together. She was all he could see, all he had been able to see since the day he had met her. The aroma of her cologne filled up his nose. The lace of her dress rubbed against his thighs. It was all Rhett could do to resist dragging her into a room and show her what she refused to hear.
"I will let you go on one condition, Scarlett." He bent down, grazing her ear with his lips. "Forget what you think you know about me. Forget what you think you understand about me. I know this will be difficult for you, but for the next half hour, forget everything but what I'm about to tell you."
Her eyes flashed. "Fine," she spat.
He stepped back and spun away into the hall. Nothing had changed in the house. Faded portraits and floral paintings adorned the walls. The rugs sprawled out beneath his feet, clean but worn, and the smell of bread and lemon hung in the air. Rhett hesitated between the parlor and the library, strolling into the latter with a shrug, skirting the fine line between sentimentality and satire.
Sweat continued to collect in his palms. He snatched a book off the shelf, thoughtlessly thumbing through the pages. Distractions were second nature to him; the long and short of a man prone to wander and averse to waiting.
A few words leapt up from the tight print and Rhett smirked. Footsteps pounded into the room. He snapped the book shut and a cloud of dust billowed into the air, making flecks of gold dance across the sunlit room. His smirk widened into a grin when he turned to face Scarlett.
"You are the vilest man I have ever met," she flared. "To come into my home, and insult me! I wish I could forget you. I wish I could forget I ever knew such an ill-bred cad."
Rhett looked her up and down. She was so maddeningly charming, so barbarously sensual. From head to toe, his slow gaze stripped her bare. He tossed the forgotten book aside, deliberately careless, and reclined against the desk. His lust for her was barely leashed; it seemed pointless after his arduous confession and greeting.
"You might want to think about changing your tact, my dear," he drawled. "You have no idea how appealing you are to me when you are in a temper, and in a library no less."
Scarlett's face blanched whiter, and Rhett laughed.
"How you have the gall to stand there," she said. "Of all your nasty, common jokes, this is the worst. And to think I was glad to see you—"
"Ah! So I did detect some genuine delight in your welcome. Tell me, when did you first realize you missed me?"
"Miss you? If I was glad to see you, if I did miss you, I don't anymore. You are an arrogant varmint—taking advantage of me, making all sorts of insinuations when my husband's hardly cold in his…"
Rhett had spent years memorizing her features, engraving into his mind the slight fluctuations in her face, the curve of her body, the shade of her eyes on a stormy day. And so he saw that flicker of sorrow before it cloaked her face, and was at her side when the first tear fell. He gently took her by the arm, but she flung him off and glared up at him, her eyes shimmering in checked tears.
"Let me be," she rasped. "If you touch me again, I'll scream so they hear me in Timbuktu."
Her feeble threat loomed between them, her desperation peeling away the haze of desire from Rhett's vision. For the first time today, he truly saw her. Her face wore a pinched look; her shoulders carried a heavy load. The same infinite weariness he had perceived in her at the jail, when all her velveteen airs had withered into utter fatigue, clung about her. She was thinner than she should have been too, starved for more than just meat.
The proverbial truth had set Rhett free and he itched to convince her of his love, amused and enticed by her evident lack of faith and interest in his declaration. Yet invisible fetters still bound her, to unseen things and people. This was not the horse jail. He had no reason to crush the instinct to fold her into arms, no pride to hinder him, no impotence to strain against. He only had her to fight against. And that was more than enough.
Rhett put his hands on her slender shoulders. Scarlett pouted, but did nothing more to spurn his touch.
"Let me go," she said.
"No."
She scowled. "Why? What do you care?"
"A great deal, if you must know. Come darling, what's the matter? Do you need money?"
"Money? Money?" she laughed with a jagged edge. "You think this is about money?"
"It's always about money, be it thirty pieces of silver or a pound of flesh."
"What a horrid thing to say," she moaned. Suddenly her face crumpled and she sobbed, "Oh Rhett, I've ruined everything."
Without a break, he wrapped his arms around her. The heat of her breath blasted through his shirt to his skin. Some of her hair had escaped from her thick bun, and he tucked the loose strands behind her ear, easing into the comfort of her closeness.
"Not even you could destroy everything, Scarlett," he soothed.
"Oh, but I have," she cried. "I have Rhett. You've been gone—you don't know what I did. All I've done since the war ended is lie and trick and hurt the people I love. I made Frank marry me, because I lied and told him Suellen was marrying Tony Fontaine."
"So that's what you did to snatch up your sister's beau. I've always wondered."
"Yes, yes, I lied and made him do all sorts of things he didn't want to do. He could barely hold his head up for shame." She wept harder, her frantic fingers wrinkling Rhett's clothes. "I tricked Ashley, too. He wanted to go north for a job. I knew when you came back to Atlanta, you'd be mad at me, but I couldn't let Ashley move that far. I just couldn't. I offered him partnership in the mills. I told him I needed help because of Ella."
"Ella?" Rhett asked, pulling out his handkerchief and drying her cheek. Nothing in his calm voice or careful caress revealed the chaos from within. Ella. The name reared up inside his mind, a hydra with gnashing mouths. So Scarlett had given Frank a baby girl. Somehow that was worse, so much worse than if she had borne another little boy.
Rhett brushed his lips along the top of her head. He had to hear it from her.
"Can't you tell me about Ella?"
Scarlett nodded meekly, half her face still concealed into the creases of his shirt and jacket. Her sobs were gradually sputtering into cottony breaths.
"Ella, my baby. Frank's baby." She lifted her face. Her greens eyes glowed brightly in between the red rims and thick lashes. "What was the point of it all Rhett? I killed Frank and Tommy, and now because of me, Ashley and Hugh and any number of other men will be hanged. It could be any day now. No one will talk to me. No one will even look at me on the streets, none of my old friends, except Melly. She doesn't spite me. But Maybelle's furious because Renée had to run off to Texas, and I know Fanny blames me for Tommy's death. And it is my fault. I swore—I swore I would do anything to never be hungry again. I swore I'd lie or cheat or even kill—and now I've done it all. I'd take it all back if I could. God's punishing me and there's nothing I can do to make it right."
She gazed up at him, pleading for things he doubted she knew how to say. Knowingly or unknowingly her lips were slanted up at the corners, beckoning him to kiss her. He heeded the indistinct call and lowered his mouth to her cheek, across her nose, and onto her lips. She tasted of salt and roses.
The kiss was tender, a kiss of more compassion than passion. She didn't fight him like she had only minutes ago. Her response was immediate and warm. She thawed into him, ice turned into liquid. And he drank in her willingness.
Soon they broke apart and Rhett led her to the sofa, slipping his hand behind her back for support. His fingers lingered as long as possible on her waist. She sat down, resting her hands into the pleats of her dress and keeping her gaze on the floor. Rhett sat beside her, trying to read her expression. It was cloudy, more subdued than he had ever seen it. She sniffled a few times, her tracks of tears fading into nothing.
"Here, use my handkerchief," he said. "You never seem to need one, unless I'm around."
She dimpled briefly and took it from his proffered hand. They were silent for a minute. Only her haggard breathing punctured the stillness, the husky sound stoking Rhett's longing. Oblivious, always oblivious, Scarlett twisted and untwisted the handkerchief into a rope.
"What am I to do?" she whispered. "I don't know what I'll do if…if Ashley dies because of me."
A pang of jealousy cleaved Rhett's heart in two. Ashley, it must come back to Ashley. The wooden-headed Wilkes had stood in his way for years. Rhett was done with this discussion. He cupped Scarlett's chin and leveled his gaze at her. Her lashes were thick with water.
"Scarlett, I didn't come here to stand as a witness while you humble yourself in sackcloth and ashes. You are no more responsible for the deaths of Frank or Tommy, or anyone else involved in this comedy of errors, than I am. Men are free agents. Frank didn't have to marry you, Ashley didn't have to buckle under your persuasion, and none of those hotheads needed to stir up trouble and behave like hooded idiots. If anyone's to blame, it's those foolish Klan members."
Her eyes darted over his face. He willed her to believe him. Electricity sparked between them. Rhett dropped his hold on her chin and she dropped her head.
"That's what Melly keeps saying," she said. "The men did what they felt was necessary, and so did I. But if I hadn't been so determined, none of this would have happened. And God knows it, too."
"Well, then God knows both sides of the story, and can hardly blame you."
"Oh, how can you say such things? You don't even believe in God."
"No, but you do. Brace up, Scarlett. You'll weather this storm with as much bullheadedness as you've weathered other storms. Guilt lessens with time, and with the elasticity of your conscience, I daresay it will be much more swiftly and smoothly than most."
"You do talk scandalously."
"The truth is always scandalous."
He watched her fray the edges of the handkerchief, as her breathing slowed and her shoulders squared. The capricious flexibility of her morals always humored him, her thickness of mind also. But today was different. He was exposed, as vulnerable as a sailor to the siren's song, and her obstinacy acted as a superfluous knife against his neck. Nothing could be cut and dry with her.
Rhett cleared his throat, and said in a light voice, "Now, back to the matter at hand."
She looked up, and he could tell she had already managed to excise off some guilt. Her frown this time was perfectly sincere.
"What matter?"
"The matter of my love for you."
She groaned. Rhett chuckled. His casual confession had rolled off his tongue, and she had rebuffed it with equal indifference, as if they were discussing the weather.
"Don't tease me now, Rhett. I'm not in the mood."
"I confess my love for you and you are suspicious?"
"Love? How you do run on. Why you don't love anyone but yourself."
"Is that so?"
"Yes," she said airily. "And don't think I've forgiven you for your vulgar advances, either."
"You didn't seem to mind the last time."
A blush crept up her neck. "That doesn't mean I enjoyed it, I just knew it was futile to fight you off. I was resigned, not rejoicing."
"It hurts that you consider my heartfelt confession a malicious attempt on your, er, virtue."
"You are coarse and conceited, and if you take advantage of me one more time, I will ask you to leave, with a pistol in your back, if necessary."
"That hardly scares me, darling. I've decided to steal from your methods and become as ruthless and dogged in my pursuit of you, as you are with…other men. So, if you wish for me to leave, which we both know you can't make me do, you're going to have to hear me out. You did promise."
"Or what? You better hurry. Aunt Pitty will be up from her nap soon, and the children will be back from their walk with Mammy. What is it you want to tell me? Or do you think you can take more liberties?"
"That remains to be seen, and though unusual, I thought my motives were fairly clear today. I'm here because I love you."
He could mask everything behind his cool, but the hunger in his eyes. He wanted her to see it.
"You expect me to believe—"
"I don't give a damn what you believe. And frankly, I don't give a damn how you feel about me right now, either."
She balked at this, her mouth quivering into an "O."
"It's painfully obvious that I love you, that I have always loved you—obvious to everyone but you. I've told you how much I've wanted you. Once, I even told you those three dangerous words." He rubbed his jaw. He'd never let her know that she'd cracked his bone with that fateful slap at Rough 'n Ready. "But you are blind to the truth when you see it and deaf to it when you hear it. Perhaps today will be different. I am a changed man, after all."
"Fiddle-dee-dee," she scoffed nervously. "You've gone from bad to worse, no doubt."
"Haven't you heard? I've settled down."
Her blush deepened and she ducked her head.
"You settle down? I'd sooner believe horses could talk."
Rhett barked. "I'll ask my sister if she knows of any."
"Your sister?"
"Yes, my sister. She's made me into an honest man, or more accurately, a glorified servant who lives to cater to her needs."
He saw the questions and calculations spin in Scarlett's eyes, pinwheels of green and leftover tears. She started smoothing the handkerchief against her dress. Rhett noticed the shape of her thigh as she distractedly played with the cloth. Reluctantly he glanced up. A bittersweetness softened her face.
"I'm sorry about your mother, Rhett," she said quietly. "My Aunt 'Lalie wrote me about it months ago. With everything going on, I forgot to offer you my sympathies. Is that when you started looking after your sister?"
"I'm not sure how much looking after Rosemary needs, but yes. She's been with me since the funeral."
Rhett turned his head toward the window. The sunlight was leaking into the room, dripping fountains of molten orange across the floor and furniture. The flickering rivulets of light shifted his thoughts to the ocean, to his boyhood, to his mother. If nothing else, Scarlett had to know.
"Scarlett, this isn't one of my jokes. I love you, and despite what I said earlier, I need you to believe me. But you are so damned stubborn."
Abruptly he slid off the sofa, and she gasped. The golden afternoon washed over her, casting dazzling colors onto her face and hair. It even bathed her black dress in an amber hue. The effect transformed her into an enchanted goddess; Persephone resurrected from the dead of winter to warm the world with spring. Rhett held his breath, before recklessly throwing himself across her altar.
"Say you'll marry me," he breathed, reaching for her hand and kissing the sliver of wrist peeking out from her sleeve. "Say you'll marry me, Scarlett. It doesn't have to be today, or even in the next few months, considering your tarnished reputation, but marry me you must."
"But…but…"
She sounded flustered, and he winked at her as he switched to the other wrist. Her pulse quickened, the beat bumping rapidly against his lips. He wanted to feel her entire body pulse beneath him with the same rhythm.
"My pet, you were made for marriage. It might even be fun."
"Fun," she said breathlessly. "You don't know the first thing about marriage. Fun, indeed."
"I happen to know a great deal about the first thing in marriage," he replied. "And I know I can make that part fun."
"Oh…Oh…Don't say such things. It isn't proper."
He stopped kissing her and placed her palm against his cheek. It was soft and slightly clammy. A chill tickled down his spine and he stared up at her, without a mask, without mockery.
"Marry me, Scarlett."
His words struck her at last. He could see it in her face.
"You love me," she said. "You mean it."
"Yes."
The gleam of triumph that he had been watching for suddenly appeared. He needed to regain some footing, or she would unsheath her claws and rake them across his flesh. And he would fall, hard.
"I surrender," he said. "You are the conqueror, and I'm willing to treat you as a liberator, instead of a captor, but don't expect me to cower and grovel before you. Even Cleopatra had to answer to Caesar."
Some of the smugness drained from her face.
"You know I don't love you."
"Yes."
"And you still want to marry me?"
"I want you anyway you'll let me have you." Rhett's cool was cracking from humiliation and hope, but his voice remained even. "And I intend on having you, Scarlett, one way or another."
She searched his face, and for a moment he thought she was going to hurl herself into his arms, until suddenly, her eyes misted with a faraway look and a faint smile rounded her lips. Rhett's heart splintered again. He jumped up, yanking her up with him, and ignored her outrage.
"Scarlett, I'm not going to make it that easy on you," he growled into her ear. "Not when I have nothing to lose, but you."
He dipped her backwards, his arms trembling and his mouth eager. As his lips touched her skin, his years of cautious denial crumbled into dust. He held nothing back. He would not stop until she relented. The frenzied minutes flattened into timeless intoxication as Rhett kissed her, and she kissed him. In a gasping exclamation she at last said yes.
"You will love me," he said, holding her close. "You must."
~0~0~
On the heels of Rhett's arrival came the judgment day for Ashley Wilkes and his band of accused men. When life (instead of death) sentences were handed down there was a wail that rose up from the courtroom, a cry ripped from the throats of the families whose men's lives had been spared, but whose happiness had not. In some ways the mercy, won only by the hidden influence of Rhett's money and connections, stung worse than the clean sword of justice. It replaced mourning and vengeance with resentment and hope, just enough bitter promise to weigh down the hearts of the townspeople, just enough to finally snap their spines in two.
The Old Atlanta, already crippled and impoverished by the war and reconstruction, sank. That once bawdy vibrancy of the upstart town decayed into little more than cheap imitation, the flaking paint on a whore who had seen better times. Rhett walked amidst the ruin, frowning at the useless squander. He hated misuse and stupidity. He decided to stay here only as long as necessary, as long as it took him to convince Scarlett to elope.
He didn't have to wait long.
Three days after Ashley Wilkes had been carted away, Scarlett agreed. Rhett winked at the timing. Honesty, he had found, cut both ways. And whatever the cause, Scarlett was going to be his. He could taste it. He could smell it. The thrill of possessing what was always meant to be his, what must be his, roiled his blood and tingled on his tongue.
The marriage took place without any fanfare. There wasn't even much of a scandal. The townspeople were too relieved to be rid of Scarlett. In the wasteland of new Atlanta, Scarlett had been branded the most toxic inhabitant.
After the small ceremony, a lone Melanie Wilkes wept sweetly at the train station, hugging a wide-eyed Wade, nuzzling a dozing Ella, smiling at a speechless Rosemary and, to the shock of even the conductor, timidly raising her lips to the cheek of the bridegroom. She whispered a quivering thank you to Rhett for depositing the gold into her bank account, before stepping back and blushing.
A rare expression of honest surprise washed over Rhett's swarthy face. He had never intended on Melanie finding out. He looked down and saw in those clear brown eyes, so pure and good, a kind of gratitude he knew he would never see again. A flush darkened his tan skin and he tipped his hat.
Turning, he caught the cold eye of his new bride, and it was in that instant, with the steam from the engine swirling as a fog and the streetlamps flickering in the wind, that he saw her—again—for what she really was. The blinding fervor of having laid himself bare to and been superficially accepted by her vanished. He remembered why he had vowed never to tell her he loved her.
There wasn't anything Scarlett O'Hara must do, least of all love him.
For years Rhett had wandered on the borders of Scarlett's life, choosing to live between heaven and hell. The figurative limbo had fallen short of a ramshackle haven—even in ignorance Scarlett had torn his heart into a shred of muscle. But high on his declaration, he had flattered himself that her negligent clawing could not hurt more than any intentional attack. The weeks and months following their elopement, Rhett laughed at his sentimentality.
~0~0~
The fire had dwindled into neon embers and the low light splashed Rhett's sharp features with shadowy war paint. He slouched in his chair, a tumbler in one hand and a cigar dangling in the other, thinking of that moment ten months ago at the train station when he had realized he had traded purgatory for hell.
The days hadn't all been hard. There had been moments of fun, degrees of bliss; caresses that weren't so careless, kisses that weren't so reluctant. Balance demanding that the heights must occasionally scale the depths, inch for inch. Sometimes he had basked in the warmth, forgetting that it was not the sun that shined, but the pits from below. In their bed, somehow, he had often reached for and found connection, not compromise or coolness or pain. And of course, the real grace in his life: Rosemary. Although, loving and being loved by his sister had burdened him with hope, a deadly thing to a doomed man.
Rhett took a slow drink and sighed.
"Penny for your thoughts," said a soft voice.
He glanced up. Rosemary stood in the doorway to his study, her dark hair piled high and her ball gown flawlessly draped around her tall figure. Not a wisp or wrinkle out of place, despite the hours she had spent tonight twirling in an eddy of nouveau riche climbers and old money aristocrats.
Paris suited his sister, and she certainly suited Paris. It was the only city she hadn't asked to leave after a couple months. It was the only city she had called home since fleeing Charleston.
Rhett smiled quietly and gestured for her to sit down across from him. "Can't sleep Rosie?"
She shook her head and walked into the room, picking her way through the mess on the floor. He watched the set of her jaw harden with each careful step. She reached the other arm chair and slipped down without a word. Rhett turned his gaze back to the fireplace. The hiss of the small blaze filled the silence.
"Did she wake the children?" Rosemary asked after a moment.
"No."
"Is she in bed now?"
"I don't know." Rhett paused before sucking on his cigar. "And I don't care."
He finished smoking and tossed the butt into the grate while Rosemary took the pins out of her hair. He smirked at how she placed each pin in a perfectly straight line at her feet.
"You know what mother would say if she saw that," he said, pointing at the floor.
Rosemary stopped, with her hands stuck in her hair, and followed his gaze. She snorted and rolled her eyes, laughing as she combed her fingers from her scalp to her ends.
"She would say that Father had ruined us all, and then destroy my pretty design."
Rhett chuckled. "And if you were Radcliff, you'd pout about it for a week."
"Ah, but if I were you, I'd cry about it for a month." Rosemary wrinkled her nose. "Just because I didn't grow up with you, doesn't mean I don't know all of your precious secrets, my dear, elder brother. You forget Mammy Ray raised me just as well as you."
"She may have raised you, but not half as well as she raised me. I was her favorite."
"Of course you were her favorite," quipped Rosemary. "I wasn't born yet."
Quick as flash, Rhett leaned down and snatched up the pins, flinging them across the darkened room. They rained down on the hard floor in an uneven clatter. Rosemary's mouth fell open, her shock so real and ridiculous, that the two erupted into loud, easy laughs.
Tears trickled down both sets of black eyes by the time the laughter faded. Rosemary's smile fell first. She was decades younger, and layers thinner.
"It's good to hear you laugh," she said. "A real laugh, too, not…"
She bit her lip.
"Le rire, c'est le soleil, il chasse l'hiver du visage humain, " Rhett muttered. He set his tumbler on the floor and ran a hand down his face. "Go on Rosemary, just ask."
"It's not my place to pry."
"You've lived with us from the beginning. If it's anyone's place to ask, that place belongs to you."
She nodded and said, almost to herself, "I love Scarlett. I do. She's unlike any other woman I know. It might sound strange, but getting to know her, I almost feel as though I have glimpsed what you were like as a young man, Rhett."
He raised his eye brows and Rosemary shrugged. Her eyes warmed and she shifted in her seat, staring into the firelight. Her voice was thick when she spoke.
"Mother always thought you had a sweetheart in Atlanta. She used to say that the only way you would live away from the ocean was if your heart was inland. And anyways, we heard rumors. I suppose I was more hurt than shocked when you told me you were getting married—that you were eloping," she peeked at him for a second, "It was so brazen and mad, and romantic. You never have done things in the traditional way. I thought you two must be terribly in love…"
Rhett heard the sob that she strangled. He started to go to her, but she waved him away, facing him with her palms up and her eyes glossy.
"I don't understand, Rhett. I don't. If you knew Scarlett didn't love you, why did you marry her? Why did you—you shouldn't bring a baby into this. I know. I was that baby. Do you think mother loved father again after I was born? Do you think she forgave him? I looked exactly like you! That's all I ever heard as a child—that I looked like the brother who no one wanted to remember and who no one could forget."
Rhett sank onto his knees and grabbed his sister's hands.
"Oh, Rosie. I wish I could erase your pain, but I'm old enough to know that apologies are worthless. Nothing I say will right the wrong. Nothing I do will undo the hurt. The only thing I can give you is a promise. I swear to you, Rosemary, I am not father." He smeared away a tear with his thumb. "My baby will not pay for my sins."
Rosemary folded in her lips and shook her head. Suddenly she looked younger again, fuller in the face than the girl he had rescued two years ago, but with the same uncertainty saddening her eyes. She squeezed his fingers.
"It's not your sins I'm worried about, Rhett," she said.
She kissed his forehead and stood. Rhett watched her tiptoe toward the door, her silky outline disappearing into the hall. He slumped down and buried his face in his hands. He couldn't move. His fatigue ran too deep. Rosemary had only heard part of the argument this evening, the worst of it had happened after she had left for the ball.
~0~0~
Rhett was reeling, trying to conceal the blow that Scarlett had inflicted when she had stalked into his study and cursed him for getting her pregnant, her indictment carrying throughout the house. He spied Rosemary from the window, scurrying out the inner courtyard, absconding as she often did to pleasanter scenes and places. Abandoned in his red despair, with only Scarlett for company, he turned to the bottle and cruelty. But as usual, his mockery merely laced his wife's fury with scorn. Always, always she knew that behind the barbs lay his bleeding heart.
"You're a fool, Rhett," she seethed. "I didn't fall in love with Frank or Charlie for giving me a baby."
Rhett realized the cap to his decanter was out of his hand when it had slammed into the wall, knocking several books off their shelves. Scarlett stumbled back, catching herself on the desk. From the falling pages, whipping in the tumult as parchment wings, had fluttered a single, loose paper. Too late Rhett remembered where he had hidden the letter addressed to Scarlett, written by someone serving a life sentence in a federal prison.
"What is this?" she asked, snatching it from the air. Her eyes swiftly scanned the page, and she glared up at him. "You read this?"
He shrugged, grinning, and swilled down the brimming glass in his hand. It was the only way to calm the tremor.
"Why did you keep this from me Rhett?'
He looked at her, dead in the face and even deader in the heart.
"I was thinking of you, pet," he jeered. "So that the next time you lie in my arms and imagine I'm Ashley Wilkes, I can better play the part."
Her eyes sparked as green flints and she stormed out, the letter in hand. Craving complete oblivion, Rhett wandered over to the chair in front of the fireplace, his brandy in hand. He gazed into the flames. There was something inherently seductive about a fire. With the right amount of neglect, it could burn the world to the ground.
~0~0~
On the floor, sodden with drink and sorrow, Rhett replayed that most recent argument, until those waking thoughts swirled into a dream. He didn't often dream, but when he did, it was always a nightmare. With the quantity of alcohol coursing through his veins and the heartbreak in his chest, it was no wonder that he found himself in a sleepscape of horror.
He was back on Rough and Ready, the inferno from the Atlanta warehouses igniting the night into an eerie, smoky day. He looked behind him and saw Scarlett, sobbing into the neck of the shabby beast he had stolen. Throwing his linen coat in the dirt, he ran over to her, but halted in his tracks when she turned. Her belly was exposed and swollen, stretching her skin into a grotesque pink bubble. With pain in her eyes, she crashed to her knees and screamed for help. Rhett hurried to her side and tried to lift her up, but she pushed him away. "Where's Ashley?" she shouted. "Who are you? I don't love you." Her voice expanded and echoed, and Rhett fell to the earth, covering his ears. Over and over he heard his wife yell the name of the man she loved. And as her voice grew louder, the burn from the faraway skyline crept closer, until it finally engulfed him in flames.
Rhett woke up panting and in a cold sweat. A pale face loomed over him, and before he could remember why he shouldn't, he drew Scarlett to him, scooting up against the chair and cradling her in his lap. He was still half-drunk and half-asleep, his anger swallowed up in the surreal effects of both. He started kissing her lips, moving his hands beneath her wrapper, seeking the soothing touch of her skin and the familiarity of her body. She was breath and freedom and light. This was how she always felt. This is how it should always be.
She sighed into his ear, just as he rubbed the swell in her belly. And that's when the real dream ended. His eyes snapped fully open and, holding her wrists, he forced her off him. He staggered onto his feet and she shrunk back on the floor. His gruff voice broke the stillness.
"Not tonight, Scarlett. You can lust for your lover alone."
As he rushed past her, however, she grasped at his knee.
"Rhett, wait, please. I know…I know you didn't read the letter."
The jagged glass in her voice stopped him and he looked down at her. Her nightgown drooped open at her chest. He could see her breasts sagging, could feel her shivering against his leg. Everything about her begged him to answer.
"No," he admitted at last. "I couldn't."
She nodded, swallowing loudly, and keeping her eyes on his, slowly pulled herself up.
There was something in her expression, something that he had not seen before. At first he thought it was a trick of his mind or a glint from the moon. Quietly he put his hand under her chin and turned her head toward the dying embers. For a long time he studied the face he knew so well. And then he dropped his hand and stepped back.
Scarlett shook, coiling her arms around her waist.
"Rhett, Ashley wrote—"
"That's not what I want you to say, Scarlett," he said. "Not yet anyway."
Her eyes darted frantically over his face. Rhett twisted his mouth into a half smile and Scarlett's jaw went slack. Her body stilled.
"Oh darling," she cried, leaning toward him. "I knew right when I read it—I've been such a fool. I never really…I love you, Rhett."
That buried hope—that lethal wisp of possibility—leapt up from the dark recesses of Rhett's soul. He swept Scarlett into his arms, and slipping the surly bonds of hell, reached out to claim his portion of joy.
Note: Sorry for the anachronistic reference at the end. I just like the sound of it...And the French was Hugo. Not anachronistic. "Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face." I know this might seem abrupt, but that's the fun of short stories. I like loose ends in short stories, and to leave it to the reader to finish the story.
This what-if has pestered me for awhile.
Thanks for the reviews.