Author's Note: Those who left reviews, THANK YOU! You are too kind. There are so many good stories on this site, it means a lot that you took the time to read and offer your opinion on mine. :)
Scarlett raced up Ivy Street, so filled with determination that there was no room for hesitation when she found herself in front of Ashley's house, which she had largely avoided since Melanie's wake for propriety's sake. Gathering her courage, she pushed open the unlocked door and glanced around for either India, Ashley's spinster sister, or Beau, his poor suffering little son.
She found Beau at the table, drawing something with the set of charcoal pencils Rhett had given him on his last birthday. At least he was dressed appropriately, in a high white collared shirt and a dark tie, as if for church. His dark brown hair was short and brushed close to his head.
"Hello, Aunt Scarlett," he said, noticing her after a moment.
"Hello, Beau." Scarlett attempted gentleness. "Is your Aunt India at home?"
Beau shook his head.
Seizing her opportunity, Scarlett said, "Your father is expecting me. Is he in his room, Beau, honey?" Her voice, although she didn't realize it, was that of Beau's gentle mother, Melanie.
"Yes, Aunt Scarlett – ah – Aunt Scarlett?"
"It's all right, Beau. I just need to speak to him privately," she replied, somehow knowing what words would assure the boy that she had the right to see his father in his bedroom.
She tapped on the door.
"Ashley?"
"Come in," the dead sounding voice called. She entered the room in a rush, then stopped in her tracks, rigid in shock, the door slamming behind her. Ashley, naked from the waist up, was standing there, his back to here. He was wiping his neck with a hand towel. At least two empty bottles of whiskey lay on a chair beside his dressing table.
"Throw me a decent towel, India."
"Ashley, you are drunk!" Scarlett blurted out, her eyes to the floor.
He whirled around, giving a loud grunt of surprise.
"Another steam bath. She'd turn me into a puddle, Scarlett. Doctor Meade says it calms my nerves. Heat wave in October, would you believe..."
"Ashley." Scarlett finally dared look up, and only the door at her back stopped her from falling backwards at the sight of his bare chest and tired, stooped shoulders. His raised arm gave her a bird's eye view of the hair underneath – no longer golden, but gray. Never had she seen Ashley's bare chest. Even in the days after the war during the hottest days in the summer at Tara, he and Will wore undershirts as they worked the fields. Never had she been so near him in this state, half-naked, sweating from the hot bath, vulnerable. The feeling of being so near him in the small room stunned her like a blow. She felt attacked by it, and she knew that she was violently blushing.
"I'm not so very drunk, Scarlett. Now, what did you need to speak to me about?"
"I need you to dress yourself, make yourself presentable enough to speak to a gentleman at the National with me at eight thirty this evening."
She stared directly into his face.
"I want you to sell the mills back to me."
"You may have them."
"I want to sell them, Ashley. That's the way it's done. The papers are drawn and all you have to do is sign them."
"Well if that's all."
"Ashley, look at me."
"Drink, Scarlett?" he offered her a glass of something he had poured already. He held the glass out to her.
She shook her head. "Ashley Wilkes, why are you acting as if it's the most natural thing in the world to drink in the middle of the afternoon?"
He moved closer to her, bent forward and tilted her chin up with one hand so that he could see directly into her eyes. Confused and speechless, he traced the curve of her chin up to the edge of her jawbone with his finger.
"No, Ashley," she said softly. "No."
His hand began to shake and she clasped it tightly. "Ashley, please, will you come with me tonight? Please? I'll come back here tonight and you can accompany me."
"Yes."
"Good."
"Until tonight then," Scarlett said, then bolted from the room. She looked around the tiny hallway with shock. She couldn't have possibly have planned to come back here tonight. She couldn't have possibly agreed to meet with Ashley and Mr. Peek with no other male member of her family present. Nothing that had happened could have happened. It would not have happened. Why shouldn't it have, she thought to herself. Rhett was gone. Her world was dissolving around her.
With the instinct of someone fighting for her survival, she picked up her hat on the rack in the foyer, jammed it on, and ran out of the house and back into the street.
About twenty minutes later she was back at her house, flustered and furious, drinking hot chocolate in her luxerious, gaslit boudoir, pondering the always absorbing problem of Rhett.
Why was it, Scarlett wondered in familiar vexation, that she still managed to garner such physical reactions from Ashley and from Mr. Peek, she who considered herself such an authority on men, but had completely and utterly managed to lose Rhett's affection and love.
Scarlett couldn't tell herself what had happened to her. She was utterly confused, the connection between her mind and her body were overwhelmed with the ever present sorrow of losing Bonnie, Melly, and Rhett in such a short span of time. Her heart hammered with wild excitement in her chest, frighteningly fast. What was she to do with Ashley?
Catching her breath, she reminded herself that she would do tonight as she had done since Melly's funeral. Facing the Atlanta Old Guard without Rhett at least nominally in her corner had been like learning a new language, and she had forgotten how to be herself, or at least, how to be the Scarlett she had been. She could manage the household and see that the children had their lessons, but that was the limit of her capacity to handle life after Rhett had walked out on her. All of her powers to win him back had fused into a tight ball of immeasurable intoxication, but there was no relief – he was no where to be found and clearly had no intention of returning to Atlanta save on his own good time.
The days following Melanie's funeral had been a blur. Sometimes she had played games of lawn tennis with Beau and her son Wade and daughter Ella. Twice, she had taken the three children for a picnic in the park adjacent to Oakwood Cemetery, so that afterward they might pay their respects to Melly since Ashley was in no condition to do so. But even then, Scarlett found herself in a clouded daze, her thoughts locked on Rhett and his leaving. She stopped seeing any of her vulgar, new-monied friends. It was out of the question to laugh and sip wine and listen to music when her mind beat only to the refrain of her broken heart. Her memories of Melanie had quickly faded since she couldn't speak to her of the one person who was on her mind.
That night, after she had seen the children to bed, she had ordered the carriage to fetch Ashley at his home and then return for her, if only to spare her from India's tongue-lashing for her impromptu visit to his bedroom earlier. It was nearly eight, and she was mad with anticipation by the time her maid knocked on her bedroom door and announced that Mr. Wilkes was awaiting her.
She fought to breathe evenly, to make her voice sound normal for Ashley.
*~*G~*W~*T~*W~*
"Well, if I didn't have to rush home tonight," Scarlett said triumphantly, "perhaps I would have taken you up on it."
"And poor Mr. Wilkes?" Andrew Peek grinned, "Did he have a fit and choke on an excess of tonight's libation?"
"You're one to talk. You can barely walk yourself."
"I beg to differ. I am perfectly steady. You, Mrs. Butler, are tilting, which is precisely the reason I sent him on in the carriage and offered to convey you home myself."
"Fiddle-dee-dee. I'll thank you to leave as soon as I reach the door. And I need to hurry or I'll – "
"You'll what?"
"I awake the house."
"You are the mistress of it, are you not?"
"Yes, but – "
"Well, why must you play Cinderella then? The ball does not have to end at midnight, Mrs. Butler."
"Whatever are you talking about, there isn't a ball – oh – you're teasing me just like Rhett teases me when he –" her voice trailed off, and Andrew's dancing eyes lowered. For all Scarlett's skill in relaying her husband's business prowess as a reason for his absence, he doubted her story, every word of it. As they had talked together all evening, with only occasional interjections from the sad eyed Ashley Wilkes, his suspicions had soon been confirmed that she was not all that she pretended to be, nor was her elusive husband.
She was wearing an unadorned pale blue evening dress, trimmed at the waist with a narrow black velvet band. She doesn't even realize, Andrew thought to himself, how appealing she looks, simple and natural.
Mrs. Butler was a wealthy woman, he was sure of it, and she had no need of his money and no urgent reason to sell the store. The mills, he could understand, as the grieving widower truly was in no condition to manage anything and needed to be relieved of his responsibilities while maintaining some bit of dignity and independence. Mrs. Butler had provided that for him by purchasing the mills for far more than they were worth, and she had done it under the pretense of reselling them to him, the eager expansionist. And Mr. Wilkes had accepted the bargain with little thanks, promptly gotten so intoxicated he had to be helped out, and Andrew had taken the opportunity to engage his other dining companion in conversation. He was not disappointed; she inflected her words with the air and attitude of a plantation belle, but managed to keep up the appearance of an enterprising, entrepreneurial member of the nouveau riche.
And when he mentioned her husband in any way, she flushed exquisitely and declined to give him any more information. But he had not probed and he didn't intend to. Let her keep her secrets – it was better that way now that he was this far in his conquest. To listen to such problems would make him vulnerable to becoming ensnared within them, and that was the last thing Andrew Peek needed.
"Perhaps you'll consent to accompanying me to the theater sometime, and have supper after. Mr. Wilkes is invited too, of course," he added, sure that she would agree if he mentioned Wilkes as a safety net for propriety's sake.
"I'm not certain," she replied, her voice filled with the slightest twinge of – regret – "Atlanta is a very small town and folks talk."
"I promise to find some place very quiet and discreet," he smiled genuinely, exposing even white teeth, "Some place tiny and very dark."
"Do you want me to say yes or don't you?"
"I do, Mrs. Butler, or I wouldn't have asked."
"If you can find such a place, and if Ashley is there as well, then I suppose ..."
"I will find such a place, Mrs. Butler. I promise you that."
"You're worse than Rhett, you know that – "
"You know, Mrs. Butler, you can't expect to spend the entire night comparing me to the man and refusing to disclose the truth of him, can you?"
"Of course I can. It's none of your business, anyway."
"Of course not," he answered, waiting for the response he knew was coming.
"You must understand that Rhett … Rhett... Rhett has no intention of returning to Atlanta."
"No?" he feigned shock, although he could have figured that much on his own.
"I must leave soon, I must take Ashley and the children and leave. Oh!" she became breathless and her eyes were filled with tears. "How could I have told you, what possessed me to tell you!?"
"I'm sorry for prying. As amusing as your lies have been all night, you've looked as if you've wished to scream the truth out to someone."
She looked a little outraged at herself, or his response, he wasn't sure. Quickly he added, "On the other hand, I would like to know. I've been quite liberal with information about myself, my business. But I know nothing of you, no one in Atlanta. I could be quite objective a listener, should you need someone to talk to."
"Oh." Scarlett glanced at him sideways, still discomfited. "I don't know you and you certainly don't know me and – don't do that!" she cried out, snatching away the hand he had covered with both of his.
"Do what?"
"Take liberties..." a tear rolled down her cheek that she didn't dare wipe away. "...as if I'm some loose woman."
"I would never take you for anything but a lady, Mrs. Butler. Scarlett." Scarlett. Just her name set his already hammering heart beating wildly.
"You shouldn't..."
The wine was clearly taking its effect on her – and him too, he was realizing – Peachtree Street seemed nothing more than a painted backdrop.
"This is impossible. You're impossible. Ridiculous." Scarlett was speaking aloud but he pretended not to hear.
"I want to kiss you," he heard himself say.
Beyond her obvious state of unrest, there was desire in her eyes, and he seized the initiative, passionately kissing her closed lips. She kept them closed, but pressed against his strongly, with increasing eagerness. There was no doubting that someone had kissed her with more than the chaste kiss of husbandly affection, and she craved such passion more than anything in the world. Her eyelids were tightly shut and he could see the tears rolling freely now.
"Wait," he drew back. "Look at me, Scarlett."
For a second, he thought she might faint.
"I'm very sorry if I – "
"I need to go. Leave me alone," she whispered breathlessly, backing away from him and taking off in the direction of her darkened house.
