Thank you everyone for all your kind reviews. Caroline – a special thank you for your encouragement. You won't get you want in this chapter but I think it is coming! Some criticism has been levied at me that Scarlett wouldn't turn into another Melly (especially in her relationship with her children) – I hadn't intended her to become another Melly at all so I have tried to rectify it here- but I do think that, even at the end of the book, she was softening. And I do think she would have made more of an effort with her children – even if only out of guilt. Also after Bonnie died, she actually wanted the respect and companionship of the Old Guard but because she seemingly recovered from Bonnie's death so quickly, they thought her heartless. I also read into India's pleadings with Dr Meade on Melly's deathbed that she (India) had got it wrong as between Scarlett and Ashley and she could see how Ashley really had loved Melly.

As before, none of the characters are mine – how I wish they were. They all belong to the amazing Margaret Mitchell! (How fabulous would it be to write a book that 75 years later, people are still discussing the ending!)

Chapter 4

By ten o'clock that morning, Scarlett was at the store. She didn't need to go but she wanted to get out of the house and away from Rhett. Their sporadic conversations since he had returned had been hurtful – with unnecessary terse remarks. When he had first left her, she had cried herself to sleep every night and willed him to return and tell her that it was all a mistake but as the months had passed and she had realised he was not going to return – or at least anytime soon – she had dusted off her sense of abandonment and calling on the same huge effort she had used when Bonnie had died, she started her life again.

"Good morning, Miss Scarlett," Hugh greeted, as she sashayed into the store. She had decided that, whilst she had not necessarily finished mourning, she was done with wearing black and had put on a practical pale blue dress, edged with black brocade, overlaid with a cream shawl and cape. Spring had been unseasonably cold.

"Good morning, Hugh," she replied, immediately walking past him and into the back office. "Did the deliveries arrive on time?" She was as business-like as ever and even the return of her errant husband would not derail her.

"Yes, ma'am. Two hours ago. They have already been unloaded." He followed her into the cramped office, where Scarlett spent many hours crawling over the books. The store was her haven and, since Rhett had tricked her into selling the mills to Ashley almost two years previously, provided her sole independent income. She often thought that she did not need the lavish allowance Rhett bestowed on her each month but since the black cloud that had hovered over her in those first three months after Melly's death had lifted, she had resolved to spend as much of his money as possible and leave her income untouched.

The morning dragged on. For want of nothing better to do, she decided to take a stock check but was continually interrupted by customers and as she was the better salesperson than Hugh she didn't delegate. By one o'clock she was famished and determined to return home for lunch. She hadn't quite expected she would need the break – her appetite had disappeared over recent months and she had been used to working until late afternoon with only some fruit as a snack.

She snapped the ledger shut and walked out of the office, closing the door behind her. She locked it and as she did so, she heard a familiar voice.

"Scarlett!" It was Maybelle. Scarlett grimaced. She knew she would ask her about the ball and as yet, she could not give her an answer.

"Hello Maybelle." Scarlett worked her winning smile on the small brunette who was walking towards her. Maybelle awkwardly kissed Scarlett on both cheeks – a first for Scarlett. Did Maybelle really consider her a friend these days? She was holding the hand of her youngest son, Napoleon, and dragging him across the cold, stone floor of the store. He had turned five a few weeks ago – the same age Bonnie would have been tomorrow.

"Did you get my note? I wasn't sure if it would reach you before you left for the day. I know how you like to get an early start at the store."

Scarlett started walking towards the store's exit. Maybelle turned back on herself and followed. "Yes, I did. Thank you." She knew Maybelle was expecting her to say more but she wasn't quite sure what to say. If she said that they would go and Rhett decided not to accompany her, her humiliation would be complete.

Maybelle looked puzzled. "So, do you think you will be able to come? I know it's late notice but I had hoped...I mean..." She cleared her throat from its nervous tic and when Scarlett looked at her, she bashfully averted her eyes towards her son. "I thought of inviting you on your own a few weeks ago but I wasn't sure if you would want to go to a dance without your husband but now that Captain Butler has returned, I figured...well...it would be perfectly lovely if you could both come." Scarlett smiled at Maybelle. She wasn't quite her sort but her heart was in the right place. Stalling to reply, Scarlett asked,

"Who else is on the table?"

"Well, Rene and me, Andy and Mary Bonnell, Fanny, Hugh and Jane, Ashley and India and Rene's cousin from Louisiana, Jack. He's in town for the week – in fact, he got in just last night." Scarlett considered the list in her head. She had nothing against any of them – in fact, she had never even met Jack – and they were certainly people that Rhett, in his respectable days, would have been keen to interact with. But that was when he had Bonnie's future to contend with.

And then, Scarlett took a gamble. She had two days to persuade Rhett to go to the ball and Scarlett O'Hara was not easily defeated. She turned to Maybelle and said, "We would be delighted to attend. How much are the tickets?"

Maybelle grinned and genuine friendliness flickered in her eyes. "Five dollars for each couple." Scarlett went over to the cash box that was behind the front desk, unlocked it and took out a crisp five dollar note. "Hugh," she called out. Hugh was hovering a few feet away observing the social intercourse between his mistress and his friend. "Can you please make a note that I have borrowed five dollars and remind me to return it tomorrow." Scarlett was a stickler for the books adding up. "It looks like Rhett and I will be accompanying you all to the ball on Saturday night." Hugh nodded, wondering how his wife would react to the news – Jane Elsing was one of Scarlett's most vehement opponents - and then he held the door open for Scarlett, Maybelle and Napoleon as they left Kennedys.

Scarlett's carriage was parked right outside. Maybelle stood aside whilst Scarlett put on her riding gloves and clambered up. Then Scarlett did something she had not done in a long time; she asked a member of the Old Guard if she cared for a ride home. Scarlett knew that the Picards only had one battered old cart and one horse and that Rene would have taken them to get to work.

"If you are sure you don't mind and it isn't too much out of your way," Maybelle said, thinking of her tired feet.

"Don't be silly. Besides, I am in no rush to get home." This was true, her hunger pangs had subsided. Scarlett helped Napoleon onto the seat and Maybelle joined him. Scarlett jerked the reins and the carriage started moving.

They sat in silence as they passed the bustle of the Atlanta streets. From a distance, Scarlett saw Mamie Bart and Sylvia Connington walking towards the National Hotel and silently prayed that they would be too absorbed in their gossip to see Scarlett. Ever since Bonnie had died, she had found their company, and that of the other pinchbeck ladies, tiresome. And when Melly had died and Rhett had left her, the latter which they only suspected, they tried to jostle Scarlett out of her melancholy without realising that Scarlett was hurting and wasn't ready or willing to let go of her melancholy. They had no understanding of, and had no care to understand, Scarlett's bond with that silly, mousey-haired Mrs Wilkes who had dressed in drab clothes and who was on the board of every depressing charitable organisation. When Scarlett's whist evenings and invitations to her crushes abruptly dried up, they dropped her just as quickly as they had taken up with her. Scarlett neither cared nor really noticed but seeing the duo walking down one of the main thoroughfares of Atlanta, with their already well-padded behinds made to look ridiculous with the garish bustles that draped over them, she was reminded that she hadn't spoken to them in a long time and certainly had no desire to speak to them today. Especially not with Maybelle in her carriage.

"Scarlett," Maybelle said, finally breaking the silence, "I wanted to properly apologise for what my mother said yesterday. She should never have said what she did. It is none of her business. She just gets carried away sometimes with Mrs Meade and they often put two and two together and come up with five."

"Really, don't worry," Scarlett said, keeping her eyes on the street and realising she was just about to pass her two former friends, "I've forgotten it already."

"Well, I know that some people give you a hard time but I try to remind people what a hard time you have had what with Melly and before that, Bonnie and then..." Scarlett stiffened – she did not need Maybelle fighting her battles. Then, because Maybelle had a habit of prattling on without always thinking, she added, "It would have been dear Bonnie's fifth birthday tomorrow, wouldn't it?" For some reason, everyone had always remembered Bonnie's birthday – perhaps because it had fallen on the last day of March and she had avoided being an April Fool's baby. She recalled the ridiculousness of Napoleon "hosting" her precious daughter's second birthday party three years earlier. Oh, her daughter would certainly have had more beaux than even Scarlett had had! If she had lived.

"Yes. It would have been." Scarlett said simply and for once, she didn't care that someone might see the tears in her eyes. Scarlett had shed many tears in her life to manipulate situations, usually involving men, but she had never genuinely cried in front of anyone other than Rhett, Melly and Mammy, the latter two, only when her parents and Bonnie had died. But she had a feeling that Maybelle would understand – after all, she too had buried a child just before Atlanta fell.

"It's hard, isn't it?" Maybelle said, looking at Scarlett. "I'm not sure you ever get over it, however hard you try."

Especially when the father of your child refuses to talk about it, Scarlett thought bitterly but then flinched at the memory of the vicious insults and accusations she had hurled at him in those dark days immediately after their child's death.

"Actually, I've got to go to Mass tomorrow." Scarlett said. The Picards were one of the few Catholic families in Atlanta. "My sister Carreen arranged for a Mass to be said in Bonnie's memory."

"Well, that might help," Maybelle offered. Scarlett doubted it but didn't bother to correct her. Religion had offered her little comfort over the years and had only served to frighten her.

"Maybe," Scarlett said. She jerked the reins left to turn into Pleasant Street and pulled up outside Maybelle's house. Maybelle got out and reached up to take her son.

"Thank you, Scarlett. I'll see you on Saturday."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~S&R~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Scarlett got home, she found the house empty, save for Mammy and Dilcey. Pork was running errands for Rhett, the governess had taken Ella out for a walk and the other servants were in their quarters.

"Miss Scarlett," Mammy said as she helped Scarlett out of her cloak and shawl, "Dilcey dun make yo lunch."

"I'm not hungry, Mammy," Scarlett said.

"Now, Miss Scarlett, Ah's tole yo, yo mus eat. Ah ain gwine see ma lamb git any thinner."

"I'll eat later, Mammy. I'm feeling tired and want to take a nap. I've got a headache." Mammy followed her up the stairs.

"Well, Miss Scarlett, Ah's mak yo eat sumpin later." Scarlett didn't bother arguing and let Mammy help her out of her dress so that she could go to bed.

When Scarlett awoke three hours later, her headache had gone and she felt refreshed. She could hear Wade laughing and Ella's high pitched and irritating screeching. Rhett must be with them, she thought. That was the only possible explanation for such gaiety.

She rang for Mammy and ignored Mammy's raised eyebrows as she helped Scarlett in to her new pale mint dress. Scarlett needed some sort of assistance if she was going to persuade Rhett to go to the ball with her and a pretty dress was as good as any. Rhett might not love her any more but he was a man and...she stopped herself and felt the colour rise to her cheeks. What was she trying to do here? She certainly didn't want him to put her in the same category as that Watling woman but if not, then what was her plan?

When she was dressed, she pumped her scent bottle lightly over her hair – Rhett had always loved how her hair had smelled – and she walked down the hallway to the nursery. The three of them were in there – Rhett had Ella on his lap and was reading her a story whilst intermittently breaking off so that he could move his pieces in a game of chequers against Wade. They all looked up at her.

"Mother, you look pretty," Ella said and then looked back at the book.

"Good afternoon, Mrs Butler," Rhett drawled. He looked coolly and directly at her but then she felt his eyes rake over her as though he was noticing her for the first time. She held his stare for a few seconds, trying to read him, and then turned to her son.

"Did you get the saddle, Wade?" Scarlett asked.

"Yes we did. A shiny black one. I've put it in the stables already."

"Hmmm. Well, maybe we can go riding tomorrow together. I'm not going to the store tomorrow and you're not going to school either." Wade slowly nodded in agreement, even though he wanted to go to school. But he knew it was his dead sister's birthday and he knew that he had better not upset his mother.

Ella, her concentration now broken, jumped down from her stepfather's lap and went over to her dolls' house. Unlike Wade, she was too silly to notice the growing tension between her parents. Rhett was still looking at her but now his expression was smooth and bland and there was no possibility of misinterpretation.

"And what else have you got planned tomorrow, Mrs Butler?" he asked. She felt like telling him that it was none of his business. Yet, as she still had to extract a promise from him that he would attend the ball with her on Saturday, she held her tongue and told him an abbreviated version of the truth.

"Well, I'm going to Mass in the morning and then I have no plans."

"Sewing circles and now church? My you have changed." She knew he knew the real reason for her attendance at Mass tomorrow and she hated him for mocking her.

"Not so very much," she said, quietly. "Besides, you might be forced to change if your two best friends left you." He looked at her with an expression that she couldn't quite ascertain but the mockery in his eyes had vanished. "Well, are you having dinner with us tonight?"

"Why not?"

"Why not indeed?"

"I am the head of the house so I might as well take my place at the head of the table." His response was so incredulous that Scarlett couldn't help but let out a snort of derision.

"Head of the house? Only when it suits you, though." She turned before she could see Wade's face crumple up in pain at the insults that the adults were firing at each other. "I'll see you at dinner, then."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~S&R~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dinner passed peaceably with Wade and Rhett engaging in most of the talking and discussing the horse that they might buy on Saturday. Scarlett pushed her food round her plate and then asked Mammy to put Ella to bed. Feeling the frostiness between his parents, Wade asked to be excused soon after, leaving Scarlett properly alone with Rhett for the first time. They sat in silence whilst he lit a cigar and poured each of them a whisky. He slid her glass across the expansive mahogany table and Scarlett took it. She had cut back on her drinking in the months after Rhett's departure but tonight, she needed extra fortitude.

"Rhett?" Her husband looked at her and tapped the ash from his cigar onto a plate. "The Ladies Memorial Association are trying to raise the last bit of money for a memorial at the Oakland Cemetery. "

"And?" he scoffed. "You certainly don't need my permission to donate money."

"No..." she said, hesitatingly. "No I don't. But they're not asking for money as such they're hosting a ball. And I would like to go and I would like you to accompany me." There she had said it!

"Indeed?" he said and looked at her with his black, taunting eyes. "And, pray tell, why should I do that?" Scarlett felt her temper rise.

"Because...because you are my husband."

"How lame! I'm only your husband because you won't divorce me." God's nightgown! This man was so hateful! He took a swig of his whisky and then reached for the decanter again and poured himself another measure.

Scarlett's eyes flashed with steely determination. She wasn't going to give in just yet. "It's the least you can do. Everyone will be there and I...well, I want to go too. And it would look mighty odd if you didn't go with me. You owe it to me Rhett. You abandon me and the children. I don't hear from you for months and then you just turn up with no explanation or warning."

"I did what I promised, Scarlett. I told you I would come back from time to time. Although I am beginning to regret making that promise," he fired back at her.

"I'm not quite sure why you even bothered to make it. You've never even cared about gossip or reputation." He sighed and inhaled his cigar. Then he looked at her straight and blankly.

"I made it because I felt sorry for you and because, strangely, I felt...feel... some sort of responsibility towards you...and the children." Scarlett laughed and tossed her head back.

"That's rich! Responsibility? I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself and my family, thank you very much. I had the burden of the whole extended O'Hara family on my shoulders for years and I was perfectly able to take care of them." That wasn't quite true, she thought quickly, as she remembered how she had had to prostitute herself to keep a roof over their heads.

He ignored her protestations and continued. "I feel responsible because I got you into this whole sorry and miserable mess. A mess that I'm not sure how we can get out of. I should never have married you. It was probably the single and biggest mistake of my life." If he had fired a bullet straight to her heart, it would not have hurt so much. How could he say marrying her had been a mistake? Hadn't they had some happy times? And there would have been no Bonnie. If Scarlett hadn't been the love of his life, their daughter certainly had been.

"No," Scarlett said, her lip quivering. "The biggest mistake you ever made was never telling me you loved me. For the dashing renegade that you profess to be, you are one of the biggest cowards I have ever met." She got up from her chair and drained her glass. The whisky burnt her throat but she was already numb from Rhett's words. At that moment, she hated him passionately, more so than she could ever remember. "I'm not sure I want you even under the same roof as me anymore. You can't even be civil. You're just nasty and cruel. Why don't you just spend days and nights with that blousy red-head whilst you go about your Atlanta business. You still have her key, don't you?" Rhett dragged his chair back, stood up and went over to his wife. He locked eyes with her, silently challenging her to continue her tirade. His large, muscular body completely dwarfed hers and he was so close to her she could feel his breath on her neck. Finally, he moved away, back towards the whisky decanter.

"I'll go with you," he said, smooth as ever. "Maybe it'll be fun to catch up with some old friends."

"Forget it! I don't want to feel I owe you anything. It was a stupid idea of mine and quite frankly, I think I'd rather go on my own."