Eight months in the making (premature for a baby, huh), here is the next chapter of this story. I was going to wait till Monday to post it, but it's Monday somewhere on the globe and I was impatient to share this because a) it's super long and b) it's about some of my favorite people in the GWTW universe. Now, don't expect miracles, but since summer is here I should be able to resume a slightly more reasonable schedule going forward. And unless some asshole character wants to jump in, the next chapter should be all S&R with only minor shenanigans in the background.

My gratitude to iso for not blowing a blood vessel at some of the previous versions of this. Her work ethics and patience humble me daily (or at least twice a year, when I have a chapter for her to read). And a warm thank you to all the nice people who left reviews during this stretch of silence. They do make a difference, eventually.

Now, let's meet the Tarletons, shall we?

Chapter X: Fairhill

"'I don't know which hit Beetrice Tarleton worse, losing her boys or her horses,' said Grandma Fontaine. 'She never did pay much mind to Jim or her girls, you know. She's one of those folks Will was talking about. Her mainspring's busted.'"

(GWTW Ch. XL)

"Ella Lorena," Scarlett said sharply over her shoulder, "if you don't stop fidgeting this instant, we'll turn this wagon around and leave you at Tara. Your aunt Suellen was just about to start her sewing lessons with little Susie."

There was a sudden alarmed squeak from the back of the wagon and then Rhett's amused drawl rose softly, after a moment of silence. "Sweetheart, do you want to come sit here, between your mother and me? Your sister can go in the back with Luce. She's already fallen asleep."

Scarlett frowned silently at the intervention, while her husband slowed down the wagon so she could hand the sleeping child to the young girl in the back and make room for Ella, who climbed onto the seat between her parents with heretofore unsuspected agility.

Nothing on this little trip had gone as planned. They had intended to leave for Fairhill immediately after dinner and take the children with them. But first Wade was late in returning from Mimosa, where he now spent all his mornings and a good many of his afternoons as well. And when he finally did return—a little sheepish, but not obviously repentant—his clothes, shoes and elbows were in such a state that one might have suspected he and little Joe Fontaine had chosen that very day to trample all over a swamp. A scowling Scarlett had had to send him wash himself and change before they could leave.

Yet further obstacles awaited them in front of the stable. Tara had two large wagons, but they were both out in the fields, for Scarlett had not thought to retain them that morning. The remaining wagon, the one that had transported their luggage from the train station, was small, cramped… and awfully familiar. That last she realized with an unpleasant start as she came to inspect it closer. There was no doubt about it. This was the wagon Rhett had stolen for her at the fall of Atlanta, the one that had seen her, Melanie and the children back to Tara after his desertion at Rough and Ready. She had given Will Benteen firm instructions to burn it once she had enough money to buy a replacement, but it seemed he had ignored her wishes and carefully mended the blasted thing instead, for there it stood—as shabby as ever, if a little less rickety. She cast a furtive glance at Rhett, who was examining the vehicle himself, hands nonchalantly in his pockets. His eyebrows were raised, but there was no glint of recognition in his dark eyes, and she was relieved.

The size of the wagon was a problem, for it meant that Mammy could not come with them—not if she was to travel in any degree of comfort. They needed someone young and nimble, but there was no one of that description to be found, since Suellen had fiercely insisted she could not part with either of the two young women who were helping her at Tara. In the end, the daughter of one of Will's field hands offered and was promised a gold coin for her efforts. By the time the Butlers had finally left for Fairhill, Wade and Ella safely in the back of the wagon with Luce, it was already mid-afternoon. It didn't take long for Bonnie to succumb to sleep, ensconced as she was in her mother's arms and rocked softly by the trot of the horse, for, since arriving at Tara, this had gradually become the hour for her nap. She did not stir as she was passed on to Luce in the back of the wagon. Ella, on the other hand, was thrumming with energy and fairly bounced on the seat between her mother and stepfather.

"Can I hold the reins now, Uncle—Daddy?" she tripped over her words.

Rhett smiled and put one arm over her shoulder so, squeezed to his side, she could hold one of the reins while his hand was covering her small fists. This was the way he sometimes rode with Bonnie before him on his saddle, but Ella, unaccustomed to it and clumsy by nature, tugged on the reins sooner and with more enthusiasm than he had anticipated. The wagon lurched slightly to the side before Rhett soothed the horse.

"Now look what you've done!" Scarlett admonished sharply. The little girl bit her lip in almost comic dismay, but Rhett patted her shoulder and bent to whisper something in her ear, something that made her giggle and cover her mouth with both hands. Her mother hummed in disapproval at the sound.

"Don't worry," Rhett said, looking up with a small smile, "she won't do it again—will you, poppet?"

"Nooo, never," Ella shook her head, extending a cautious hand to the reins. Scarlett frowned and turned to face the road again, swallowing the peevish remark that hovered on the tip of her tongue.

She didn't know how it had come to happen, but lately she'd felt like quarreling with Rhett. No, not quarreling in earnest, for she knew that to be dangerous now and rarely dwelt on topics that would ignite her temper to it. She felt like bickering. Yes, bickering with him and needling him to retort. Many a time over the past few days she'd found herself fighting back a pointed rejoinder to whatever it was he was saying, or checking some sharp provocation that rose unbidden to her lips. The reasons for this eluded her entirely. It wasn't as though she missed Rhett's malicious comments or the sharp sting of his sarcasm—it could never be that! Yet there was something in the unflappable, ever so slightly distant kindness he had adopted since arriving at Tara that vexed her and provoked her, had done so ever since she'd learned he labored to protect her peace from afar. For his part, he never gave her any reason for grievance. He was unfailingly polite and quick to head off even innocuous moments, like he'd done now with Ella. She could not even detect in him the subtle, teasing mockery that had so frequently laced his courtesy before—and somehow this fact, far from soothing her, irritated her further. She crossed her arms, huffing silently to herself, while at her side an unconcerned Ella was babbling merrily in her stepfather's ear.

By the time the wagon made its way up the thickly-wooded hill to the Tarletons, the light had turned heavy and bluish, as if it already carried in it the soft, cool weight of the evening to come. Filtered by dense leaves, it fell sparsely over the darkened contours of what remained of the Fairhill mansion. The Tarletons had been slowly clearing away the ruins—whatever little they could salvage long since reused in new constructions—so only the lowest lines of its foundations could still be discerned against the darker canvass of the trees behind the house. Scarlett instinctively averted her eyes. There was no place in the County, with the possible exception of Twelve Oaks, whose death had pierced her heart with more sorrow.

But things at Fairhill were less bleak than she recalled them. As they drove up by the paddock, they could see the silhouettes of a new mare and colt in the distance, and Beatrice Tarleton striding rapidly towards them from the back fence, the black skirt of her riding habit looped negligently across one arm. And as they pulled up in front of the shabby overseer's cottage the Tarletons were still inhabiting, life and noise poured instantly out of its doors. First came the four girls, waving and cheering so loudly one might have thought they were out fox hunting. With them streamed out a dozen black and tan hounds, their shiny bodies weaving impossibly fast through the skirts of their mistresses to launch themselves in greeting at the newcomers. Finally, Jim Tarleton and Tom Randall, Betsy's husband, came out of the house, but had to stop short on the threshold. Utter chaos ruled the front yard as the guests alighted.

"Scarlett!" the Tarleton girls yelled in unison over the eager barking of the dogs. "It's been so long! Down, Brutus, down!"

Scarlett smiled at them in greeting. She'd been handed Bonnie, who sat calmly in her mother's arms, regarding the commotion around her with frank, wide-eyed interest. Her sister was not nearly as sanguine. Ella was afraid of dogs and was a fair way to climbing on top of her stepfather's head in terror. Too scared to make a sound, she clawed desperately at Rhett's shoulders to be lifted higher and higher, away from the leaping beasts, while he whispered feeble reassurance into her ear.

"Oh, look at her!" Hetty squealed, pinching Bonnie's cheeks. "Isn't she Mr. O'Hara in miniature? Betsy, just look at her eyes! And her chin!"

But her sister had already moved on to Wade, who was at his mother's side, disguising his shyness by smiling down at the impatient hounds that were milling all around him and jumping on top of each other to lick his hand.

"Why, I spy a tiny Charles Hamilton here!" Betsy announced loudly.

"I'm sure Charlie was afraid of dogs, though," Randa mused thoughtfully and was rewarded with a swift kick in the side by one of her sisters. Wade had looked up with the eager expression he always donned when someone mentioned his father. "That is," she coughed, "he must take after Scarlett there!"

"Is that a way to behave?" Mrs. Tarleton's voice cut through the ruckus. Her riding crop came swiftly down on the hounds' sides as she made her way to the little group. It touched them with more sound than force, but they yelped and ran away nonetheless. Scarlett couldn't help but notice that the Tarleton girls had drawn cautiously back as well, and she stifled a grin. "Have you been raised by wolves?" Mrs. Tarleton admonished her daughters in a high voice. "Look at that child—you've scared her out of her wits!"

"Scarlett darling," she paused to kiss her guest, "haven't seen you in a century! You look well. Ah, the O'Hara blue eyes!" she exclaimed, peering at Bonnie, and nodded approvingly to the mother as if she had done something worthy of praise.

Scarlett turned to introduce her husband, but Mrs. Tarleton had already taken a step towards him before she could open her mouth.

"Mr. Butler," she inclined her head coldly.

"Mrs. Tarleton," Rhett bowed slightly, Ella still clinging to his neck. "a pleasure to see you again."

His voice was at its most drawlingly affable, but Mrs. Tarleton examined him with pursed lips and obvious displeasure, and she did not return the courtesy. She looked instead to the little girl who was hiding her face against his shoulder.

"Is that Miss Ella Kennedy I see there?" she asked briskly. Ella's head moved up and down against her stepfather's coat. "Why, Miss Ella, what lovely red hair you have! Who even knew the O'Haras could turn out that shade? You could almost be one of my brood."

Ella hesitated for a second and then she peeped out shyly, curiosity battling with the remnants of fear in her chest. No one had ever praised her ginger curls before. She tried to twist her neck so she could look at the nice woman with flaming hair without losing the comforting contact of Rhett's shoulder.

"Take heart, dear. No one with that kind of hair is allowed to be a scaredy-cat. Redheads are brave," Mrs. Tarleton said decisively as the little girl looked at her with an open mouth, her fear swallowed by astonishment.

"Now," Mrs. Tarleton turned on her heel, slapping her riding crop against the side of her boots, "let's find Cook and get these children fed."

::o::o::o::

With the children left under the servants' supervision, the adults assembled in the parlor for tea and mint juleps. The room was small and could barely hold the entire family during the week, when Randa and Camilla were away, teaching in Jonesboro. It was now full to the brim, with Tarletons seated on every available surface, quite heedless of any principle of rational organization. Thus Betsy, the smallest in her family, sat in a big armchair that swallowed her whole, while on the other side of the room her husband leaned helplessly back in a rickety rocking chair that creaked ominously under his weight. Randa, Camilla, and Mr. Tarleton had squeezed together on a small, faded sofa; leaving the Butlers little choice but to sit on the loveseat opposite, flanked on either side by Hetty and Mrs. Tarleton, on chairs of noticeably different heights.

Scarlett subtly arranged her skirts away from Rhett's knee, surveying her surroundings with displeasure. There was something in the atmosphere of this cramped room that was utterly missing in the restored parlor of Tara, just as it was missing in the industrious, well-tended front yard of Mimosa. But that unquantifiable something escaped her notice entirely; for while she understood Alex Fontaine's bitter struggle and its fruits all too well, this brand of cheerful poverty that made room for purebred horses yet stayed indifferent to more basic amenities was utterly beyond her grasp. All she could think of was that if she had this sort of shabby, mismatched furniture, she would simply not receive. And she would certainly not go around throwing money on horses, like the Tarletons obviously had. Randa was just recounting the story of how she and Mr. Tarleton had bought a new mare for her mother the previous year, the first one Beatrice Tarleton had had since Nellie's death. It was a tale the Tarletons had heard often and seemed to enjoy, for they intervened frequently in its telling.

"So we went on our mules, because we'd told Mother we were only going as far as Jonesboro. We could hardly borrow horses from Tara or Mimosa for that. It was a day-and-a-half's journey on a mule to—what's its name, Pa?" she asked and continued without waiting for Mr. Tarleton's reply. "But we were going to take the train back, you see, once we had bought the horse."

"How they thought they were going to get my poor Stella inside one of those ghastly horse boxes when neither of them has a clue about horses, I don't know," Mrs. Tarleton interjected, shaking her head. "And the noise in those things… She would have died of fear, my poor darling!"

"Well, we would have died with her, Ma. Father wanted us to travel in the same car as the horse and the mules—to soothe your darling and, I daresay, save the cost of the train tickets. But when we got to the stables, the man took one look at Father and asked for double the price—which was, of course, a lot more than we could ever afford."

"He did rob you," Mrs. Tarleton nodded thoughtfully, no real indignation in her voice.

"I never knew Father could haggle, but haggle he did—and it was no good. The man would not budge. I said, 'Pa, it's time to give up and go home,' but he turned to me and said 'And what about your mother?' and he wouldn't listen. In the end the man took pity on us and he agreed to take all the money we had in exchange for the horse. So now we had no money. We couldn't take the train anymore. We couldn't stop at the inn, as we had on our way there. But Father was happy, because at least we had the horse and that was why we went in the first place.

"So we rode all afternoon, he and I on our mules and the horse between us. And at nightfall it started to rain. Father had been talking of starting a camp fire and sleeping outside, but now, of course, we couldn't, on account of the rain. So we came by this little farm and Father went to knock on the door. And, believe it or not, the first thing he said was 'Ma'am, could you spare some shelter in your stable for my horse? I'm afraid it will catch a cold in this weather.' No mention of me, his daughter, at all!"

"But in Father's defense," Betsy offered, "he only had one horse and plenty more daughters at home!"

Mr. Tarleton sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling in the general hilarity that followed. At his side Randa was almost shrieking with laughter. "Can you imagine it? 'Betty dear,'" she mimicked her father's grave voice, drawing another sigh from the original, "'I seem to have misplaced Randa. But I've brought you a horse instead!'"

"Well, you do sound the same when you laugh," Hetty offered from across the room and ducked from her chair at once, propelled by the force of long experience. Yet the cushion Randa had launched at her head would have missed its target entirely. It was on a course to hit Scarlett, who was sipping her tea quietly among the general merriment, but Rhett's arm shot out and caught it in mid-air before his startled wife even had time to blink. The Tarleton sisters applauded boisterously at this action, and Rhett sketched a little bow and flourish with the cushion before he set it down by his side.

"Oh, Captain Butler, well done! You've saved Scarlett!" Hetty cried, climbing back onto her seat.

"Saved Scarlett?" Camilla snorted. "Saved Randa, you mean! Or have you forgotten the time Scarlett pushed all four of our brothers into the pond for almost hitting her with a pebble?"

Never fond of being teased, Scarlett frowned and started to defend herself. She could already see, from the corner of her eye, a gleam of dangerous laughter spreading on Rhett's face. But before she could clarify that she had been just seven years old at the time of that incident, Hetty leapt noisily to her defense.

"Oh, she only really pushed Boyd in because he was defending Brent! And she never did push Tom. He was too tall for that by then." She stroked her chin pensively. "She bit Tom, I think."

They all laughed then—all except Scarlett—but theirs were bittersweet laughs. For Tom and Boyd were dead, and the twins were dead, and their absence was alive in the room in their stead, as if through a hazy mirror one could suddenly guess how the tale would have changed with them in it, how the afternoon would have rung with their voices and the furniture creaked under the weight of their long legs. What fools these people were—Scarlett thought fiercely, beating back the wave of her own pain—to allow the past to erupt into their conversation like that, unexpectedly. What fools they were not to protect themselves against it! But they did not look wounded by it or troubled. They looked briefly lost in a shared memory.

"Finish your story, darling," Mrs. Tarleton prompted gently.

"Yes, where was I?" Randa cleared her throat. "The nice woman at the farm. She let me sleep in the house, but she could not let Father in as well, because she was all alone, you see. So Father had to sleep in the stable—which I think he preferred anyway, so he could keep an eye on the horse. But when I saw him the next morning, he looked like he hadn't slept at all. He was all drawn and fixing to have a fever. It was still raining outside, but we decided we'd ride all day so we could be home by nightfall. By midday Father was swaying in his saddle. But he wouldn't stop. He kept saying 'Wait till your Mother sees this. Wait till she sees this.' and all I could think of was that he would fall off and I'd have to tie him to his mule to get him home."

Mr. Tarleton was stroking his beard now, looking vaguely chagrined by this portrayal. But his wife was smiling one of her rare tender smiles at him and the girls were snickering softly under their breath. It was decidedly strange, Scarlett thought, how a family could take so much delight in a story entirely predicated on their having not enough money and even less sense.

"It was dark by the time we got back to Fairhill and Mother came out of the house to greet us. She came out in her wrapper, but we didn't think anything of it. We were both shivering from the cold. Father's teeth had been chattering like castanets for the last two miles, but now he'd stopped himself somehow. He took one step towards Mother, and she started to shout at him immediately. 'James Stuart Tarleton! Where have you been? I thought you were dead, lying in a ditch! I sent the sheriff looking for you! I sent Alex Fontaine looking for you! What have you done to yourself?' And so it went. The more she looked at him, the more she shouted.

"Because, of course," Randa paused with a grin, "even in my state of advanced spinsterhood I ought to have guessed it was not quite the thing for a man to disappear for three days straight without alerting his wife." She looked to her sister and Scarlett for approval, and Scarlett shifted minutely in her seat, as if stung by an invisible dart. "How Father didn't think of it, I don't know. We hadn't even told the girls where we were going, so they wouldn't tell Mother and ruin the surprise. And now here we were—with Mother yelling at us, as angry as she'd ever been. Father bent down to whisper something in her ear and then he stepped aside, so she could see the horse. And just by the look in her eyes, before she even opened her mouth, I remember thinking how lucky we were that she didn't have her riding crop with her—"

"How lucky you were that the sisters you had kept in the dark hid her riding crop before she went outside," Betsy clarified with a pointed sniff.

"I don't think I saw more fury on a person's face in my life. One second she was staring at the horse, and the next she pushed Father so hard that I was surprised he stayed on his feet. And when she spoke I think they heard her all the way to the other world and back. She shrieked like a Banshee, really. 'For a horse, Jimmy? For a horse? You thought I'd want you to kill yourself over a horse?'"

There was muffled laughter around the room as Randa raised her voice to an almost inhuman wail. Mr. Tarleton was looking at the floor, hiding a private smile in his beard, while Mrs. Tarleton was perched tightly on the edge of her seat, pursing her lips at her daughter's impression.

"And that was the first time I've heard Mother say anything dismissive of horses," Randa concluded her tale with a smirk.

"It's true," Hetty nodded. "She didn't even look at the horse that night."

"Oh please," Camilla waved dismissively. "She didn't look at it until we managed to put Father to bed. But who do you think was crying on the horse's neck immediately after that?"

Another round of laughter rose uncertainly in the room and Mrs. Tarleton quickly sat up from her chair. She looked, for the first time that evening, slightly embarrassed by the story. There was the faintest red spreading in her cheeks, Scarlett noticed with interest. She didn't think she had ever seen Beatrice Tarleton blush.

"Right," Mrs. Tarleton said, clapping her hands. "I think it's time we let the gentlemen retire to the porch to smoke. I have to check on Stella myself. And Scarlett dear, I will want a word with you later."

::o::o::o::

With Mrs. Tarleton gone and the men having decamped to the porch, Scarlett and the Tarleton girls were left alone in the parlor. Hetty brought out more tea and sat down next to their guest on the loveseat. Emboldened by the success of her previous tale, Randa had continued to talk, complaining quite lavishly of the teaching she and her sister were doing in Jonesboro and of their life as Nancy Wilson's boarders.

"She is—I'm sorry to have to say it—a miser. No offense, Scarlett," Randa added, having briefly forgotten that the lady in question was the late Frank Kennedy's sister.

"None taken," Scarlett inclined her head airily, for she was none too fond of Nancy Wilson herself.

"Every night she'd give us these little candle stubs, the smallest wick still left in them. 'No sense wasting a good candle every evening!'" Randa wheezed out in cruel imitation of their landlady. "So the week before last we decided we would just buy our own. And you know what? When Father drove us back to Jonesboro on Sunday, we found she had cut all our new candles in half!"

"No!" Scarlett said with a horrified laugh.

"Oh yes!" Camilla interjected emphatically, from her sister's side. "She's terrible like that. But we'll be free of her soon enough."

"Are you moving back to Fairhill then?"

Camilla smoothed her shirts carefully. "No, I—I thought Randa and I might go up North next year. Father has a cousin in Boston that could take us in. We haven't told Mother yet, of course, and she won't like it much when she learns of it, but—" She paused and suddenly looked up with a slightly pleading expression. "Oh Scarlett, you must tell us. Are the Yankees really so bad? We heard that you are friends with them now, you know."

Scarlett sat back in her seat, disconcerted by this news and slightly affronted by the turn Camilla's question had taken. "I wouldn't say I'm friends with the Yankees," she said evasively. "I do business with them, which is a different thing. Why, I hardly ever receive Yankees in my house—or never ones in uniform, anyway… But why in Heaven's name would you want to move up North in the first place?" she turned the tables on Camilla and could not help but sound a little condescending in the process.

"Well, what is there to keep us?" Camilla said, an edge of stubbornness creeping into her voice. She had wanted her doubts assuaged, not confirmed.

"Oh, Cammie, don't say that," Hetty sighed impatiently, casting an apologetic look to their guest.

"Why not, if it is the truth? We have no future here. Just because Betsy found a husband, that doesn't mean the rest of us will. There are no men left in the South anymore, and there is no money either. And if teaching is to be my and Randa's lot, we might as well do it up North than live with Miss Nancy and her half-candles forever. The Yankees can't be that bad!"

There was a slight flush working its way up her neck as she spoke. This was an argument she had rehearsed often with Hetty and Betsy, who were now looking down at their hands in embarrassment, and she could not help but raise her voice a little to defend it. What a high-strung chit, Scarlett thought with dislike, even as her mind was acquiescing to the basic logic of what Camilla was saying.

"We could ask Mr. Butler about Boston," Camilla said, her voice hopeful again. "He's been up North before, hasn't he?"

Scarlett opened her mouth to object—who even knew what nonsense Rhett would tell this girl, being the devil that he was—but Randa spoke up before she could. She had been examining her fingernails for the last minute, as if the conversation had nothing to do with her whatsoever.

"Mother will kill him if he tells you anything," she now said dryly.

"Oh, but Mother hates him anyway," Camilla said quickly and two of her sisters winced. "I am sorry, Scarlett, but it is the truth. She will never forgive him for what he said at Mr. Wilkes' barbecue all those years ago. Do you remember? He talked about the South and how we were going to lose the war. Stu and Brent were there and they wanted him dismembered on the spot."

"Well, he was right, wasn't he?" Scarlett said coldly, drawn to Rhett's defense by the sting of this censure.

"And that is exactly why Mother hates him," Camilla nodded. "She never lets go of things like that—and she's only gotten worse over the years. Father won't let us say anything to her about going to Boston. It would break her heart, he says. As if they hadn't run away from their families when they were much younger than we are! But we will go eventually. He can't hold us back forever."

Well, Scarlett thought, a little nonplused at this passionate speech. Well. She looked around her in the room—at Hetty and Betsy, who were squirming uneasily in their seats; at Randa who seemed perfectly content where she was and not terribly concerned by the idea of Boston; and, finally, at Camilla herself, who looked stubborn and flushed and very much like a child who had pleaded their case and was ready to cross their arms in defiance. She nodded slowly, not sure what she should say to all this. Fortunately for her, she did not have to say anything. For the door opened just then and Mrs. Tarleton stuck her head in, oblivious to the tension swirling in the room.

"Scarlett," she said, "do you want to walk with me outside for a moment?"

::o::o::o::

The air had turned crisp, deeper blue and violet starting to mingle at the margins of the sky, as Scarlett and Mrs. Tarleton made their way towards the horse paddock. They had gone through the porch, where the men were smoking cigars and exchanging slow, companionable words. Rhett raised a quizzical eyebrow to his wife as she made her way past him and she shrugged slightly in response. He was lounging in a chair, Bonnie on his right knee, steadily undoing the buttons on his vest, Ella on his left, struggling for some reason to fasten them back. Bonnie was winning, for the work of destruction had always gone faster.

Mrs. Tarleton crossed the yard in a swift, determined way that, had her frame not been so delicate, would have looked decidedly masculine; and Scarlett had to gather the narrow skirt of her dress in one hand to be able to keep up. She was not sure what Beatrice Tarleton could possibly have to discuss that would require privacy. The things Camilla had said about her mother and Rhett had caught at her mind and she was half-wondering whether Mrs. Tarleton might not want to express an opinion on her matrimonial wisdom, as she had when Suellen had married Will. But surely that could not be it, not at this late date. Still, she steeled herself for whatever was to come.

"Right." Mrs. Tarleton came to an abrupt stop, resting one booted foot against the fence. Stella, her mare, came galloping across the paddock at the sound of her voice. She was a truly splendid animal, all sinews and shine, red as the long-lost Nellie had been. Her riding crop tucked beneath her arm, Mrs. Tarleton reached out to pat the star-shaped splash of white between the mare's eyes.

"Right," she said again. "As your mother is not with us anymore, I thought I ought to talk to you, Scarlett. It's about your miscarriage. Your sister told Betsy, you see."

For a moment, Scarlett was frozen in place. She had not expected this. She could not even gather the presence of mind to be angry at Suellen for her gossiping ways. All she felt was a slight tingling in her nostrils, as if someone had splashed cold water into her face.

"And what I have to tell you is this," Mrs. Tarleton continued, turning to face her fully. "You have to try again for a child, right away."

"I—" Scarlett stammered, supremely uncomfortable.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't blush. I know what I am talking about. I lost a child, you see, when Mr. Tarleton and I were first married. I was young and foolish and I thought I knew what I was doing, because I knew a bit about horse breeding. But I didn't, really. I didn't have my mother with me either, because Mr. Tarleton and I had eloped and moved out here alone. Not that she would have been much good, mind you. She knew less about these things than I did. So I took to my bed and, when I left it, I walked around in a daze, like a sleepwalker. Not eating, getting rail thin, always thinking of what had gone wrong, afraid to try again for fear it would go wrong again. My luck was that Mr. Tarleton was worried and he wrote to my Grandma for advice. She wrote back and knocked some sense into my head. And then we had Boyd."

Scarlett wet her lips, unsure of what she was supposed to say in response. She had never been one to find easy purchase in other people's stories and, in this case, it was hard to see whether purchase could be found at all, for Beatrice Tarleton's reading of her situation was far off its mark and could not be set straight, not without Scarlett revealing the painfully hard knot her marriage had become. Without thinking, her eyes flew to Rhett in the distance. The Tarleton girls were now out on the porch and Camilla had approached him, she noted with a frown. But she was relieved at least that he was safely out of earshot for the present conversation.

"Scarlett," Mrs. Tarleton said more forcefully, tapping the top of her boots in emphasis, "what do you do when a horse throws you? You get back in the saddle at once, before fear has time to settle in your bones. You have to get back in the saddle."

"Get—back in the saddle?" Scarlett said startled, looking away from her husband and Camilla. There was some indefinable vulgarity about that phrase that had blood rushing back to her cheeks.

"Don't be dense. You know what I mean. You should be having healthy babies in no time at all. I won't say I like your husband—I don't. But I know good stock when I see it, and he is that. He is handsome, yes, but that's not how you can tell. You tell by the shoulders and the bones. Big, healthy bones. It's why your youngest is so good looking, too."

Scarlett stifled a small, appalled laugh at this dispassionate appraisal of her husband. Once she got on the topic of good stock and its features, it was almost impossible to stop Beatrice Tarleton. And she had to be stopped at once, before she started comparing Rhett to horses and moved on to her favorite subject, breeding in the equine realm and its many lessons for humans.

"Mrs. Tarleton, thank you for this," she said, with as much earnestness as she could feign. "I appreciate it and I—I will do my best to follow your advice."

Mrs. Tarleton frowned a little suspiciously at her words, but then she relaxed and gave her a brisk nod. How odd it must be—Scarlett thought later, as they were walking back to the house—to live in Beatrice Tarleton's world where everything was simple and came down to breeding and horses. Or perhaps not everything, she mused, Randa's unearthly wail rising to her mind. For a horse, Jimmy? For a horse?... Mindful of the evening chill that had started to descend, Mr. Tarleton had made his way to the paddock to bring a shawl for his wife. Scarlett looked at them from the corner of her eye as they were striding back to the house—the tall, bearded man adjusting his pace to match that of his small, spirited wife, who had linked her arm through his without thinking.

Everyone in the County had always thought Beatrice Tarleton didn't have much use for the girls and her husband. The boys and the horses had come first in her heart, and when they were gone, she was broken by their loss. Yet she hadn't crumpled straightaway, like Gerald had, and Scarlett now realized that was only because Mr. Tarleton had been there to keep her from falling. For years the stone wall of his love had stood behind her, silent and unyielding, holding her up the way one holds up a tree uprooted by a storm, hoping it might live despite the damage. And for years everyone had secretly thought it was in vain. Old trees rarely survive such calamities. But they had been wrong and Jim Tarleton had been right. For Beatrice had her horses and the promise of grandchildren, and she was restored to him now. Embittered and holding on to the past, perhaps, but alive. Camilla was a fool to think her father could ever be swayed to endanger this balance, Scarlett thought.

"Will you be staying for supper, dear?" Mrs. Tarleton asked, turning her head.

"No, they are waiting for us at Tara," Scarlett said. "We must be going before it gets dark."

Rhett was already waiting by the porch, Ella and Bonnie clinging to his legs. Neither of them had won the battle with his vest. Its top buttons were undone and the bottom ones fastened quite askew. Scarlett fought against a sudden urge to reach out and fix them, and hid her hands in her skirts instead. Wade stayed a little apart from his sisters and stepfather, digging the tip of his shoe into the red ground. He had been playing with the dogs all evening, cunningly escaping the company of adults.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, sir," Mr. Tarleton shook Rhett's hand. They had met before, of course, but those had been less pleasant circumstances and present congeniality dictated they should be forgotten. "And perhaps you and Wade might like to join me for a spot of hunting next week? We've good game in these woods. Enough for a stew anyway."

"What do you say, Wade?" Rhett turned to his stepson.

Wade rubbed at a spot of red dirt on his hand. It clung like rusty blood to his skin.

"Can Joe come as well?" he mumbled, looking only at Mr. Tarleton.

"Little Joe Fontaine?" Mr. Tarleton smiled. "Why, of course. He'll be a good hand with the rifle one day, that boy. Though I don't know that we need another Fontaine with a gun around these parts."

And with that they were off, hurrying home against the dark advent of night.