It was nearly supper time before Bonnie woke, hungry and cross and not at all shy of expressing herself. Rhett settled her with a piece of hard candy and the trio set out. With Bonnie on his hip and Prissy dogging his heels, they made a strange, short journey to the house on Ivy Street where the Wilkeses resided.

"Why, it's Captain Butler!" Melanie exclaimed before Bonnie, releasing Rhett's neck and reaching for her aunt, began to cry.

"Auntie! Hungry!" she wailed, no longer satisfied with the piece of candy (which was now stuck painfully in the short hairs at the back of Rhett's neck) and feeling quite betrayed by her father for not having had her supper at the ready.

With a rueful smile Rhett passed the little girl to Melanie. "She didn't sleep at all on the train last night," he explained, and Melanie understood by the deep circles under his eyes that Bonnie's wakefulness had meant his own as well. "She only just woke up and it seems there isn't much to serve for supper at home."

Melanie calmed the toddler with gentle pets and kisses. "Poor little darling, don't fret. Prissy, your mother is in the kitchen. Go on and see her and see if she can't send out plates for Miss Bonnie and Captain Butler—"

"Mrs. Wilkes, please don't trouble yourself on my account. A small goûtée for Bonnie would be more than generous."

Bonnie, with more tears, made known her reluctance to be parted from her aunt or to let her father out of her sight. Finally Beau was called in from the yard where he had been halfheartedly trying to amuse himself, an exercise which had become quite tiresome after these weeks without the constant companionship of his cousins. Beau was a general favorite of all the Hamilton-Kennedy-Butlers - except, perhaps, Rhett, although he was always more than deferential to the child. With Cousin Beau joining her at the scuffed table Bonnie acquiesced to release her death grip on her Aunt Melanie's hair and suffer her father to leave the room.

"Do sit down, Captain Butler," Melanie said firmly, showing him to a chair in the small parlor.

"Miss Melly," Rhett began, speaking more intimately as soon as they were seated. He leaned towards her slightly, then, seeing her blush, returned smoothly to a formal upright posture. "I'm sure you must know why I've come to see you," he said, his blank gambler's face perfectly concealing his hand. Melanie Wilkes, the moral epitome of her breed, could be firmly relied upon to discuss the matter at hand with demure reticence. Melanie would not address his conduct openly; to discuss even her former sister-in-law's marriage would be far too forward.

Melanie nodded, casting her soft brown eyes down modestly.

"She is gone to Tara, then?"

"Of course, Captain Butler," Melanie replied, in a tone which admonished him for a silly question but did not reproach his conduct which had necessitated this visit, the ignorance of his wife's activities engendered by his absence and utter lack of contact since the spring.

It had been necessary, of course. How could he have written? What could he have said, after April? And it would have weakened his resolve to stay away.

"The house was empty."

"Yes, she expected to be gone for quite some time. She took Mammy and Pork with her, of course. I - I am not sure about the others."

"How long ago?" he asked bluntly.

"Scarlett went to Tara at the end of July. She couldn't - ah - wait, any longer," Melanie blushed bright red and Rhett looked at her sharply.

"What do you mean, she couldn't wait?" he asked in a low, controlled voice.

It was not Melanie's place to tell the truth, nor was it in her nature to lie. "I - I simply cannot say, Captain Butler. Forgive me."

Something cold and hard knotted in his gut. Rhett nodded, but found he could no longer quite meet the gentle brown eyes across from him.

"Thank you, Miss Melly. I must take my leave of you, then. Thank you for the meal for Bonnie." Rhett stood and offered a sincere, respectful bow to his hostess. "If you need anything, you can reach me at the National, until I can get the house staffed again."

"Oh but Captain!" Melanie cried as she rose slowly to her feet, the back of one hand pressed against her back. "Won't you be going to Tara soon?"

Rhett's features did not change, though in better light a careful observer might have seen the faint blanching of the skin around his lips. "Tara is Scarlett's sanctuary. I shan't intrude. Bonnie and I will manage."

"You must go Tara," Melanie said quietly, with a soft voice like velvet-draped steel. Her hand lifted as if she meant to touch him, but, eying his powerful form askance, she seemed to think better of such contact.

Rhett bristled under his skin. Go to Tara! It was one thing to come home and face Scarlett on his terms, in a house that was as close to neutral territory as could be found. To follow at her skirts and chase her all the way to Tara was unthinkable.

The cold knot in his stomach poked at him sharply, bristling with emotion and insight he wished to keep at bay. Refusing to examine it too closely, he allowed only that his free will had been abrogated by his choices back in April. This extended absence had shown itself to be a grand but empty bluff. Scarlett held the cards, and he would have to face her hand with the house advantage on her side, not his.

"After all, it will be Ella's birthday soon," Melanie continued. Rhett smiled, recognizing that her addendum offered him an opportunity to save face.

"Thank you, Mrs. Wilkes," Rhett replied, reverting again to formality as they left the intimacy of the parlor. "We shall be at the hotel for the night. Is there anything you would like me to take with us in the morning? Any letters or presents to be delivered to Tara?"

"Thank you Captain Butler. I wrote to Scarlett just the other day, but that's already left with the post."

Melanie beamed up at Rhett with a joyful sincerity which shamed him for his cowardice, at the same time as he envied her her ignorance of the true state of his failing marriage. After last April and the long intervening months, failed must be more accurate than failing. And now—

Again, Rhett shied away from the suspicious certainty Melanie's words had raised. After Bonnie - after Scarlett's revelation of that pregnancy and her actions after Bonnie's birth, some possibilities were simply too painful to be considered.

Rhett collected Bonnie from the dining room, her well-fed tummy making her drowsy again despite her upset sleeping schedule. Bonnie wrapped her pudgy little arms around her father's neck, and her head rested comfortably against his broad shoulder. With the reluctant Prissy again trailing behind them, the trio returned to the empty house on Peachtree Street to collect a portion of their luggage and put the remaining servants, the two young stable hands, to work readying the carriage. Given the lack of food or help, Rhett would still put them all up in the hotel for the night. They could leave for Jonesboro in the morning. He gave some thought to sending a telegram, to warn his unfamiliar in-laws before his unexpected visit brought trouble to their door, but decided Scarlett would have enough advantage over him already without giving her the benefit of forewarning as well. And she was unpredictable. He had expected to find her at home, to find the status quo uncomfortably maintained. She had already surprised him by absconding to Tara; God knew, if he warned her of his impending arrival, she might suddenly conceive of a desire to see her mother's family in Charleston.

Bonnie, having expected to see her mother at home, was displeased by the removal to the hotel and the lack of the promised reunion. An explosion of temper dispelled the sleepy satisfaction of earlier in the afternoon. She stormed and sobbed until Rhett's stomach, back, and shins promised to be black and blue from the sharp toes of her shoes which had kicked at him with all the power of a spoiled, thwarted toddler. It took the combined efforts of himself and Prissy to get the patent leather weapons off her feet. Disarmed, she quieted long enough for Prissy to change her into a clean nightgown, after which she started howling so loudly that when Rhett dismissed the servant, Prissy ran from the room with her palms flattened over her ears.

Tearstained, hiccoughing, and physically drained by her prolonged battle, Bonnie finally fell asleep sometime after midnight. She lay sprawled in the middle of the single large bed. Rhett grabbed one of the unused pillows and punched it into a corner of the long sofa in the sitting area. If he slept at all, the couch would do as well as a bed.

Rhett removed his shoes, coat, waistcoat, and cravat and carefully packed them away in one of the trunks. He lay on the sofa with his arms akimbo behind his head, resting tiredly against his thick wrists. The clop and clatter of hooves and wheels outside became ever more infrequent as he tried to relax, listening to Bonnie's breath as it evened to the cadences of sleep and matching his own to the sweet rhythm.

"Where have you been?" Rhett asked, moving to take her in his arms. Scarlett stepped out of his reach and threw an arch look over her shoulder.

"Don't tell me you don't know!" she teased, coyly fluttering her thick black lashes.

"I didn't mean to stay away so long," he offered, thinking she was still hurt over his long, silent absence.

"Oh," she answered with a shrug. "It doesn't matter."

"Haven't you missed me?" Rhett teased, trying entice her to play along.

"No, we haven't missed you," Scarlett answered. She turned to the man at her side, lifting her head to bestow a warm and loving smile even as her profile displayed the fullness of her heavily pregnant body.

Rhett drew back his arm and punched Ashley Wilkes in the head.

"You never did understand," Scarlett said, looking at him with clear pity in her green eyes. Rhett reached for her again, pulling her familiar slender form close until he could feel the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest and the sharp lines of her hip bones against his thighs. She came willingly and for one breathless moment it was just the two of them again, going up into the darkness together, and then suddenly she was pushing away from him and saying, "You'll hurt the baby."

Rhett looked down at the infant in her arms, wrapped in a white blanket which covered its head.

"I thought three were enough."

Scarlett laughed, with a sound so high-pitched and brittle it cast him back to the schoolroom and the unpleasant screech of chalk dragged the wrong way on the slate.

"Are you displeased, darling?" she asked. "I thought it didn't matter to you."

"I could never have too many babies with your hair, your eyes, your spirit." Scarlett smiled, a sweet, sharp smile.

"You are so good to Wade and Ella."

"I love them, because they are part of you."

"And this baby, Rhett?"

"Of course," he said at once, not even sensing the trap which had been sprung.

"No woman would want more children with a cad like you. I couldn't stand it."

Rhett was bewildered. "The baby—?"

She laughed again the high laugh which hurt his ears.

"Oh, it's not yours. But you will raise it, won't you Rhett? Just like Wade, and Ella?"

The trap closed on his heart with the piercing force of a bear clamp.

"Indeed!" he said coolly. "Well, who's the happy father? Ashley?" Somehow he forced the bitter words out, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Looking down, he was surprised not to find any trace of blood. It seemed impossible to say such things and not be cut by the very shape and sound of them.

"Of course. I've no objection to Ashley, or his children, you see. Ashley is a gentleman." The man in question was by her side again, his pale face unmarred by Rhett's earlier violence. Had he missed somehow? He flexed his hand and did not feel the soreness in the knuckles that should have remained after such a blow. Again, Scarlett laughed, but this time the light and cheerful sound was even more deafening than the sharp-edged cackle she had used before.

"Stop laughing," Rhett said through gritted teeth.

"I am laughing because I am so sorry for you," Scarlett answered, bending her face over the baby's.

"Sorry - for me?"

"Yes, sorry for you. You are nothing but a drunken beast who's been with bad women so long that you can't understand anything else but badness."

"You turned me out while you chased Ashley."

"You can't understand Ashley or me, and you will never understand. You've lived in dirt too long to know anything else. Here, take the baby." She abruptly thrust the child into his arms. "She's beginning to slobber."

Helplessly, Rhett took the small bundle and cradled it to his chest.

"You don't object, do you?" Scarlett questioned with apparent sincerity. "You will raise it? For me?"

Rhett held the baby so tightly it began to cry. "Oh, Rhett, do make it shut up. Or take it away if it won't stop crying. I have to go see to the mills. Come along, darling."

Rhett took one shameful, hopeful step towards his wife but she had slipped her arm through Ashley's.