I honestly never thought I'd write any A/Ns on this website again. Up until a couple of weeks ago I was out of the fandom, very sporadically in touch with windies and entirely disenchanted with GWTW itself. And now? All of the above still apply, but I somehow found the drive to write a new chapter for this story. I don't know if that means I'm off the wagon again or if it was just this one chapter I still had in me. For the moment, the latter is more probable.
[Update 7/3: Ooops, I am off the wagon and might actually update in the near future.]
This chapter is for isolabella, because when I told her "ISO, ARE YOU STILL ALIVE? GOOD! I HAD A DREAM WHERE I WAS UPDATING MY FICS AND IT MADE ME ALL NOSTALGIC AND INSPIRED!" her reply was not "Who is this and why is your Caps Lock key broken?" Odd dreams aside, this chapter is only here thanks to her.
And if any of the people who left reviews or sent me PMs over the years are still here, this chapter is also for you.
"Rhett, I was thinking we could go to England."
She had spent her entire morning before breakfast nervously pacing their room, trying to find the perfect turn of phrase, the suitably soft tone to convey her intentions, the suitably dimpled smile to attenuate her husband's reaction. But it had all been fruitless and, by the time breakfast was announced, she had already decided that meekness could not be her strategy. If she was to convince Rhett to take her to England while preserving their truce, she needed to soar over the details, to smooth over the evidence of her not having trusted him in the past and instead offer her trust now, shiny and whole. For, after all, what was done was done and no possible good could come out of her drawing Rhett's attention to it by being hesitant. No, she needed to show no trepidation at his decision, no trace of worry that he'd be anything but amenable to her reasons and, above all, no sign that there was anything to warrant further scrutiny in her tale. She needed to be at her best.
And Scarlett at her best was anything but innocuous. She didn't say much, but to the perceptive eye it was as if a secret light had been kindled inside of her and was spilling forth through every crack in her normal demeanor, through every overly bright smile and calculatedly glib gesture. And there was no set of eyes more perceptive than that belonging to Rhett Butler, who had been watching her silently since she'd arrived at the table. But what he made of her strange disposition, it would have been hard to tell. His glances had remained blank and discreet, unnoticeable even to Wade, with whom Rhett had made light conversation throughout breakfast.
On the other side of the table, Ella seemed to have been afflicted with her mother's restlessness. The conversation of adults usually put her patience under great strain, but it was decidedly worse when said adults happened to be gentlemen. Uncle Rhett could be a perfectly amusing companion the rest of the time, but when he was in the company of other men, even he seemed to talk only about horses and hunting and politics— all frighteningly complicated things, if you contemplated them in greater detail, and utterly boring, whether you did or not.
At first she had only squirmed in her chair, impatiently. But then she had graduated to fidgeting with her silverware, which quickly earned her a pointed look from Wade. Being the older brother as he was, Wade had gotten used to acting as Ella's censor. He knew, or told himself that he knew, what it was like for her, for he had felt the same way as a little boy—lost in a startling world of adults that either ignored you or scolded you for things you didn't understand. He didn't want his sister to go through the same thing and, now that he was old enough to grasp his elders' motives, he tried to spare her in the only way he knew how: by admonishing her at every step, at times more severely than any adult would have.
But it would have taken more than a stern glance from her brother to check Ella's excitement once she heard her mother's words. Ella loved traveling, mainly because it meant a dissolution of authority. With her mother busy planning every detail of the voyage and her governess at home replaced with transient foreign ladies with funny accents and lenient rules, their family trips to the old continent had been so many small blessings for the young girl. Perched on the edge of her seat, precariously close to dipping the ribbons of her dress in the remaining food on her plate, she turned to look at her mother, her eyes shining with enthusiasm.
Her joy was to be short lived, though, for Rhett did not reply to his wife's words directly. Instead, he slowly put his coffee cup down and leaned towards his stepson.
"Wade, would you please take your sister to the parlor? I think you can convince Lou to bring you dessert there."
Wade got his meaning in a heartbeat. He was up from his chair before Rhett had finished his request. Ella, on the other hand, lingered in her seat. She didn't like being dismissed, had never liked it, as frequent an occurrence in her life as it was, and she especially resented it now. But another signal of Wade's eyebrows and Ella slowly got up. She made a small awkward curtsy to her parents and left the dining room, making sure to drag her feet in silent protest.
And in this Scarlett and her daughter were in perfect agreement. She had not counted on Rhett dismissing the children so swiftly; she'd rather hoped to have them as allies in this conversation, convenient shields against more probing questions. But no matter. She'd play the hand she'd been dealt. She took a careful sip of her coffee, curbing an urge to raise her eyes to the tilted mirror above the mantelpiece and check her appearance one more time. She could feel Rhett's appraising gaze on her.
"So, my dear, do elaborate."
His eyes were unreadable, but his tone was warmly jocular and that she took to be a good sign.
"Well, there is nothing much to say," she started airily. "I just thought it would be a good time for us to go to London again. The children would like it. You know how Wade loves England. And Ella's been so restless lately. You've been so kind to take her with you when you go out, but people might—"
She stopped, but the rest of the sentence traveled poisonously in the air between them, the first false note in her performance. People might think that it wasn't seemly for a girl to follow her father around like that. Like it hadn't been seemly for another girl, in a different time. Rhett's eyebrows, which had risen slightly at her nonchalant tone, fell into a harsh line. Scarlett silently cursed her thoughtlessness. She would have rushed to cover it, but he gave her no time.
"Am I to understand that traveling around the world to accommodate the children's wishes would be sanctioned by the public opinion, then?"
"No, of course not," she hurried to reply, a small, self-deprecating laugh on her lips. "It's not just the children who'd love it. I would like it as well. It's been so long since we've been to Europe and if we don't do it now, it might be ages till we can go again. Besides," —she looked down at her dress— "I will need a new wardrobe soon."
"All perfectly valid points, but I would have thought it unwise for you to travel in your condition."
"Oh, not all," she waved her hand, dismissively. "Dr. Greene made it perfectly clear that there was no danger in traveling. And I will have a physician in London, of course."
Rhett appraised her in silence for a few seconds, tilting back in his chair.
"And yet," he said lazily "one should perhaps not underestimate the value of a physician who already knows you well."
Scarlett hesitated for just a second. "I'd have that in England as well."
It was a gamble, true, but she didn't feel it to be an entirely reckless one. She only had this one chance to control the conversation and catch Rhett off his guard. Besides, she felt she had hit her stride, her voice confident, her reflection in the mirror composed and at ease.
His eyes narrowed minutely, but his voice did not lose its laziness. "Would you? I was not aware you knew any physicians in England."
"I know that one doctor I went to when I was unwell," she offered, almost offhandedly.
Rhett silently brought his chair back to level. "I don't remember you being unwell."
Her heart was beating madly and the low, almost ominous note in his voice only added to her anxiety, but she had to see this through. The woman in the mirror raised her cup to her lips, looking serene and unconcerned.
"Don't you?" she said, taking a dainty sip. "Well, I was just feeling a little under the weather. It wasn't anything serious."
"It was serious enough for you to seek a doctor on your own in a city you barely know. What does it say of its seriousness, though, that you had to take pains to hide it from your husband?"
She carefully set her cup back on its saucer. "Nothing, as I didn't hide it from you."
He laughed softly. "My dear, people have called into doubt my honor, heart and good sense before. But I do believe you're the first to try to impugn my memory."
His words were light, but there was something dangerous flickering in his eyes.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"What I mean is that you are a poor liar, if a daring one. What I also mean is to know who the fellow is."
Scarlett was too alert to danger to try to dispute his soft-spoken accusation. She rallied her rapidly fading composure to defend what was left to defend. In the mirror, the woman smiled a carefree little smile, but the corners of her mouth had begun to tighten.
"Oh, the doctor? I've been trying to remember his name, but it's been ages. I do remember his address."
"I see. And traveling across the ocean, children in tow, to a find a doctor whose name you don't remember struck you as a good idea?"
There was a probing note to the question, but all Scarlett heard was the mocking voice in which it had been delivered. She knew better than to get dragged into a war of words with Rhett when he was like this. She reached for the only explanation she had left, which in this case also happened to be the truth.
"He's a better physician than Greene."
And there it was—a vulnerability to her voice that she could not entirely disguise. Rhett seemed to hear it as well, for his eyes darkened as he leaned back in his chair again. He appraised her in silence for a few moments.
"In poker, my dear, you can always tell a novice by how needlessly they bluff. It cheapens the art, to lie so often over little. It cheapens other things as well, when one has promised not to do it."
His words were accusing, but his voice had lost its biting quality. Nevertheless, Scarlett fought against an urge to squirm guiltily in her chair.
"No matter. Scarlett," —he paused and there was a certain gentleness in the pause— "I see what it is that you're doing, this disguising of things you want so you wouldn't be denied them. But the truth is—you shouldn't want them. Not in this case. You should trust Greene. There is nothing you or anyone else can do to make this any safer for—for the child." And then, as if this last was costing him more than the rest, he added softly, "It will be fine."
There was sincerity in his voice and it was in a way a relief to hear him talk openly about things she had so far shouldered alone. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe the silent support his eyes seemed to offer. But then he reached over the table for her hand, quietly saying, "Just let it go," and, an echo of her nightmares in her ear, she instinctively shrank away from his touch.
For a long moment, his hand stayed in place, dark against the tablecloth. And then he sat back in his chair, his face wiped clean of whatever gentler emotion had been on it before.
"Neither of us can fix the past, you know."
His voice was soft, almost conversational, yet there was something venomous to it, a kind of old, hardened anger at that sentence and at her for drawing it out of him. But if it had been meant to hurt her, it didn't hit its target. For while Scarlett had fought a little pang of pain in her chest as she'd watched him stonily withdraw his hand, she'd also hazily realized that she'd won. She couldn't put it into words, but somehow she knew that, no matter what else was said between them today, she'd get her wish in the end. She only had to stay her course.
"I want to go to England," she repeated, squaring her shoulders.
Rhett appraised her in silence for a moment, his eyes bleak.
"And so you shall." He dropped his napkin next to his plate and rose. "If you'll excuse me, I believe my presence is needed elsewhere."
But he didn't leave. Halfway to the door, he stopped as if arrested against his will, and turned on his heels, hands in his pockets.
"One last question, my dear. Who was this fellow to you?"
Scarlett stared at him agape, startled by the cruel, queer light in his eyes. But before she could think of anything to reply—not that she understood exactly what was being asked—he turned on his heels again and was gone.
~~o~~
He didn't come home for dinner. Nor did he send word of his absence, which was a little more disquieting. During the last years, he had silently slipped into the habit of letting her know whenever he was late, a courtesy that hadn't been the norm during the first incarnation of their married life in Atlanta. Even after the one major fight they had had after their reconciliation, when he had avoided her for the best part of two days and taken his meals elsewhere, he had sent curt notes home, announcing his absence without elaborating on his reasons. She had guessed it had been more for the benefit of the children than her own, a way of creating the illusion of harmony between the two of them, but nonetheless that small gesture had reassured her then, had told her that he was in this to stay.
But now he hadn't sent a note and Scarlett found with a small measure of surprise that it was the children she thought of first. For her own part, she was almost glad he had not returned; she needed time alone to sort through her feelings. Yet she didn't want Wade and Ella to guess that things had not gone smoothly that morning, as if somehow their knowing it would crystallize the truth of the situation before she had time to analyze it herself, before she had time to fix it. And so, when she had gone to the parlor to tell them they were going to London, she'd added that their stepfather was out on a business errand and would be back for dinner. When dinner came with no sign of Rhett to be seen, Scarlett smiled tightly and said he'd sent a note apologizing for his absence.
The hours since breakfast had gone a long way towards eroding her feeling of triumph. It was not in her nature to dwell on Rhett having seen through her plans now that she had, one way or another, achieved them. But she was unsettled by that last question he'd thrown at her before leaving the room, by the inscrutable anger in his voice. The last thing she wanted was for Rhett to conceive an animosity towards her physician before they even arrived in London. There would be enough time for that later, when he learned that said physician was Hallett—unless of course she thought of a way to soften the news.
The better part of the day was spent mulling on various ways to achieve that goal, for hers was a practical mind always more eager to launch itself at problems than muse on their wider ramifications. It was only in the late afternoon that she came to contemplate what the question itself had meant and why Rhett might have posed it. And then a new idea came to her, an idea so startling that it made her stop in her tracks with a small, hysterical laugh. Rhett jealous? It seemed unthinkable and yet...
Perhaps he had started to care for her again. Not all at once, as she had hoped, as she had imagined it would be, but slowly and guardedly. And now he was jealous.
It was a thrilling thought. For years she'd sifted through his every word and gesture for a sign of love, like a miner panning for elusive gold. And when at last she thought she'd caught a glimpse of it in the past few days, it had all been so muddled and faint, so mired in the detritus of old habits and false starts, that she hadn't dared claim it for her own. But now she'd found it, an undeniable glimmer, a more conclusive proof that any she had had before. And to think it had come out of the one conversation she had been dreading! To think Rhett could be jealous of an unnamed doctor his wife had seen years ago. Oh, how foolish men were and how foolish she'd been to forget it!
The warmth of renewed hope spread through her body and she basked in it for long, precious moments. But her nerves were strung too tight for it to last, the first tendrils of worry already beginning to creep into her mind. Suppose she was right, as she must be, suppose Rhett was jealous. What were they to do now? The only point of reference she had was their old life in Atlanta and then Rhett would have fled or been nasty to her to prevent her from divining his feelings, for she would have held them above his head like a sword. But things were different now; he surely must know her heart and that he could trust her with his. Yet she'd learned enough of him by now to know she couldn't confront him with the knowledge. Neither did the alternative, to stay silent and wait, hold any appeal. And so an almost reckless need to see him and confirm her suspicions battled with indecision in her mind. If only he were here now, if only he stayed away a little longer.
By the time supper came, anxiety and anticipation had coiled like twin snakes in the pit of her stomach. But they were both to be washed away by disappointment, for she came downstairs to find that Rhett had not returned. A servant came to ask whether they should lay a setting for him at the table nonetheless, and she hesitated, struck by a new, ugly possibility. She'd ordered supper to be served late and Rhett still wasn't here. What if that meant he wouldn't return at all tonight? What if he were gone for days, like he had been all those years ago in Atlanta? An echo of old anger rose in her at the thought, but she pushed it down. She wouldn't think of it now. She would make it through supper and think of it after.
"Yes, we'll have the usual number of settings," she finally told the expectant servant.
The children looked at her cautiously as they came into the room and took their seats. They didn't say anything, and Scarlett was torn between relief and annoyance at the way Rhett's absence was now the sort of thing one tread lightly around and did not mention. Yet the ceasefire proved to be temporary. Ella was only held in check by her brother's scowl, not any tact of her own. As soon as the servants finished bringing in the dishes and silence stretched tensely in the room, the question burst from her.
"Mother, won't Uncle Rhett join us for supper?"
"No, dear," her mother started stiffly, trying to find her words. She had nothing to offer that wouldn't betray her ignorance of her husband's whereabouts, nothing that wouldn't paint Rhett in a bad light. "He is—he is—"
"Very sorry to be late," a deep voice behind her finished the sentence.
It took all of Scarlett's willpower not to turn in her seat. Rhett had noiselessly appeared in the doorway. She could see the dark slant of his legs in the mirror above the mantelpiece, as he leaned negligently against the doorjamb.
"Uncle Rhett!"
"Miss Ella," he said, advancing in the room. "My deepest apologies for missing our appointment today. You'll find me solvent for a barrel of candy tomorrow, provided of course your mother agrees."
He had stopped behind Scarlett's chair as he spoke and she held her breath, half-expecting him to touch her. Ella said something, but she couldn't focus on the words. Her hand flew nervously, automatically to her hair, and froze in midair, captured by Rhett's large hand. He held it lightly in his own as he patiently replied to his stepdaughter. And then, through the sudden thudding of her heart, Scarlett heard him thank them for saving his seat at the table and felt the brief tickle of his moustache in the palm of her hand as he pressed his lips to it. Their eyes met in the mirror for a second as he let go of her hand, but she couldn't read his expression.
The meal was quiet and familiar. Scarlett spent most of it watching her husband. This was a Rhett she knew well, a Rhett at ease with the children and gentle, a man who passed you the salt when you asked for it and teased Wade on his elaborate necktie. Was there more to it than that? Would these domestic gestures look different if he loved her? She had no way of knowing, for she had never lived with a man when love is requited and blends with the everyday. What she understood were burning lights in men's eyes, revealing declarations that escaped their self-control—the kind of love that was a suspension of common life. What she'd had in her room, the certainty that Rhett had been jealous, was of that sort and had felt like a material gain. But gains like that only inspired one to want more, and here her wishes were stayed by the wall of Rhett's perfect, inscrutable affability. She'd think of a way to breach that wall tomorrow. Tonight she was too tired.
She was the first to leave the table, the children and Rhett still enmeshed in their conversation.
~~o~~
That night in their bed he reached for her. She thought it was a silent apology and was glad for a chance to offer her own. Moonlight streamed across the covers as he divested them both of their night clothes, and Scarlett felt herself slip into a familiar dreaminess. When she'd discovered long ago that the marital bed was no more to be a meeting of souls in this iteration of their marriage than it had been in the last, she had been sorely disappointed. She'd spent nights hoping against hope that Rhett would look into her eyes and accept the love written there. Yet in the end her mind had found ways to comfort itself, as it always did. For she was in the arms of the man she loved this time around and if he didn't yet return her feelings—well, there was no reason to think of unpleasant things in times like these.
Instead she thought of a different Rhett, a Rhett that was in love with her. He touched her so reverently because he loved her. His lips followed the line of her throat because he loved her. He buried his face in her hair because he loved her. And when he covered her body with his, he loved her and it might have been a small detail in moments like these but it made all the difference. Her head turned slightly to the window and bathed in moonlight, she sighed dreamily and smiled.
It was like it had been so many nights before, but it was different, too. For Rhett's body tensed at her sigh and his hand suddenly grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. He kissed her and it was so unexpected that at first she almost opposed him. He doubled his efforts then and her lips parted beneath his, the Rhett of her reverie dissolving into the hard lines of this man who was kissing her like he hadn't done in years.
"Damn you," he said. "Damn you, look at me."
She did and her eyes were wide and bewildered. There was a sort of tender roughness to his features in the dark that she couldn't remember ever seeing before. She felt her chin tremble slightly under his fingers.
"Damn you," he said again against her lips, and this time it was a caress.
Afterwards she lay on his chest, his heartbeat steady against her temple, his hand playing idly with her hair. She was for the first time in years utterly and gloriously happy. Part of it was simply that she had not known pleasure could be so complete, could stretch so seamlessly into this tender moment of rest. But beyond that, she felt weightless and slightly giddy because fear was gone. By whatever miracle it had come to pass, they had reached this place together and there was no going back. They were safe. There was nothing they could do to endanger this safety.
"Rhett," she started against his chest, her voice slightly hoarse. "Rhett, the physician was Hallett." His hand stilled in her hair, but he didn't interrupt her. "When—when we were in London, I didn't want you to worry or feel sorry for me so I looked for a doctor. And then he said he knew you, so I thought you'd be even more upset if I told you."
She held her breath when she was done, waiting for his reply. But Rhett didn't say anything. He shifted until he was above her and sought her mouth with his again.