Thank you, Thank you, Thank you all those who R&R! It helps me keep going. Still have a few issues to address before I put my pen (or laptop) down. Keep writing and sharing your ideas. S.

She woke hours before dawn, after a restless sleep. Her nightmare seemed to harass her more often as Rhett's absence prolonged. The thought of the boy in the next room and of his mother's institution down town bothered her. Robert's fragility and pride was evident. It took her ages to convince him to feel comfortable in the past two days. He wouldn't receive the cloths she had ordered for him, not even the socks. At the end of it she snapped and scolded him for being so stubborn. Being her husband's ward, she argued, granted her the right to see that he is dressed properly. She was overcome with compassion when she saw him blinking away tears.

She had to make sure that he did not find out about Belle Watling's presence. She decided that now was a good time as ever, perhaps even better than most hours of the day. She stood to dress, when an idea flashed in her head. Instead of her daily frock she headed toward Rhett's closet. It wasn't long when she was dressed like a man. She managed to flatten her breasts to a minimum. Than they saddled a horse and she took off riding with her legs spread. Oh! It felt so good to ride the horse without the pestering of the skirts

The street was nearly empty. She saw the few passers. She felt no fear despite the fact that she was a lonely white woman. The tall horse and the Panama hat she took made her feel invincible.

It was not too long before she came to the building down-town. She circled it and found another place to tie her horse. To her great dismay she found more than one horse tied to that place. The idea of running into someone was horrifying. She decided on changing tactics, and tied the horse at the front of the building. Lightly she stepped inside without knocking.

"Sir, we're closed." A young woman wearing the most revealing shinning attire addressed her.

Scarlett shrugged, the young woman noticed the features under the hat and gasped with horror. Scarlett whispered "I need to see Ms. Watling. It's urgent."

She was entered to a side room that seemed like an office of a man. The door was opened abruptly and the recently awaken Ms. Watling entered with the same girl she met at the front of the place. Belle's astonishment as she recognized the woman in front of her lasted but a few seconds.

"If you came searching for your husband, he ain't here. I can direct you to the other establishments Madam."

Scarlett rose to her feet with red cheeks and an urge to scratch the red headed woman in front of her.

"I wouldn't bother looking for my husband if he consorted out here, I dare say! " She was heading toward the door, cursing herself for the thought that she could talk to Rhett's friend, if you could call her that.

"Well, what's wrong? You haven't come here just to call on me, have you?" asked Ms. Watling with some alarm in her voice.

She decided to give it another go - "could we speak in private?"

"I don't see any call for that."

Scarlett bit her tongue to avoid snapping. Then she lift her chin and looking straight in Belle's eyes she steadily said "Suit yourself, it's about Ms. Walter's son. Ruth's. Care to reconsider?"

"Leave us alone" Belle uttered in a thin voice not her own. She stumbled towards a chair and sat with pail face.

Scarlett almost pitied the woman in front of her as she decided not to withhold the information, even if the latter had been rude with her.

"Robert is in my house. Two days now. He showed up at our door-step three nights ago, in the pouring rain. He had escaped school to come and see Rhett. When he told me his mother's real name, I realized… Well, that's why I'm here"

The woman in front of her almost fell from agony –

"I'm so stupid! God! I'm so stupid! Why did I have to write him where Rhett was?! It won't be so hard to know that Robert Walter is my son. It'll be his ruin!"

"He answers to the name Garie, as a distant cousin of mine from my French side. Robert Garie. These days it's not so difficult to invent orphan relations." Scarlett spoke her way dryly and without emotion, still upset about the former attitude - "He is a sweet boy, your son, proud and sweet. I forbade him to call himself a bastard, as he had. I just don't want him to…"

"Know his ma's a whore" Belle ended her sentence with bitterness, "I suppose you are right. And no one will care that I became one so as to keep him alive."

Scarlett lowered her head. She shocked Belle when she quizzed her hand.

"Any mother who does this should be proud".

Disbelieving she raised tearful eyes – "Would your ma be proud as to do so? Or if you did?"

"Well, no."

"Mine neither. In fact she kicked me out, the child being my elder cousin's."

"Oh!"

"Why you are such a baby!" Belle softened "Most of the girls under my roof are either raped by their some man, often by a kin like I was, alone in the world or desperate for some other reason. At least here I see to it that they aren't beaten as I had been more than once."

Scarlett was trying to absorb the truthful information Belle so easily put out but Belle did not give her much time -

"Why'd you do that?"

"Do What?"

"Risk your name for my son."

Scarlett laughed, but it wasn't a happy laughter, the resentment she felt came out for the first time since having spoken of it with her husband and sister -

"My name is in shatters as it is."

"Oh, I know you made folks mad at you during the war. It couldn't be that bad."

"I sent Mrs. Meriweather hell, telling her to mind her own business and that I'd marry Rhett even if fought on the Yankee side. She made sure no one would visit me when we returned."

"Dear God! How'd she know? Rhett surely hadn't told anyone when he was here in town. He was so secretive and sweet about it."

Scarlett eased. She realized Belle knew of their coming marriage, but for some odd reason, she rather found it endearing that Rhett had been secretive about it, even if he had visited Belle during his visit. She let her hair go and leaned backwards.

"Mr. Wilkes came to town earlier when we passed through Atlanta, and managed to spread the news. I think he wasn't all too pleased with the fact that I had fallen for Rhett."

Belle smiled "I'm glad you have. He loved you for the longest time. Than again, you were just a baby, even if you were with child."

Scarlett smiled proudly. She realized the oddity of the whole situation. Her mother was probably rolling in her grave -

"I like your son. He's sweet. Besides, he is Rhett's ward."

Belle swallowed hard "He was the only one willing to help me. Rhett, that is. When I was with child my parent's wanted me to, well, to be rid of it. Since I didn't I was thrown out. Rhett met me far in the West half-starved with a baby. I was already, well, working."

Scarlett closed her eyes for a brief second. She did not want to imagine her husband going to a whore, even if she was Wade's age at the time. But to her amazement a different picture came to her mind, a picture of a young girl, with a baby, working in something that she could hardly imagine. The thought of doing it with several men, strangers, was revolting.

Belle looked at her and added - "He's my friend, Ms. Scarlett. I don't have many, in my line of work."

"Neither do I," Scarlett muttered in a low voice.

Belle looked at her all too knowingly but did not comment on her last remark.

"When Robbie was five or six I took him east, so that he'd get education, and so that I could have a different name, so I won't tarnish his. I met Rhett again, in New-Orleans this time, and he offered to be his ward. They wouldn't put a whore's son in any good school, but since Rhett was the ward, they did, even if he is a bastard. Well, half the kids there are."

Scarlett looked at the window; the first rays of dawn were emerging.

"I should go. I put on this costume to avoid, well – you know. If there is too much light I might be recognized, and I don't want anyone asking questions."

"Can I see him?"

A silence fell in the room.

"Wouldn't you prefer to see him when he's back in school?" Scarlett urged softly.

"They'd never let me in. I don't blame them."

"Good God!" Scarlett gasped

"Oh, I'd go to New-Orleans with Rhett and he'd take him out to the park. I'd just look at them from the far."

Scarlett realized that she had more respect to this woman in front of her then to most of the women she had met.

"Come to our soup-distribution. Come as help."

"You'll be ruined for good" she raised her eyes shocked at the thought "It wouldn't be proper, and, no – there is no way I'd jeopardize Rhett's wife or house-hold, besides I'll probably meet half of my clients standing in line in your back-yard. If you could just pass by, I'll look, he needn't know." She pleaded

"No. You should be able to talk to him. No one will know. Not even Rhett. Come with some wig or scarf to the kitchen as help. Prissy won't tell a living soul, and Ms. Watling, do come early, before ..."

"Oh, I know how to pass unnoticed, have had 15 years of experience with that. I only walk like this when I'm in a mood to spite. Why that awful lady Meriweather has sent her son in law to interest me with her pies. I make her send the wagon to the front of the building at noon every other day, and I take the goods personally"

Scarlett rose with some difficulty given the laughter she couldn't avoid, and put on the wide hat back again, shoving her hair under the hat and put on the long woolen coat. Belle looked at her appreciative -

"You're a hell of a lady, Mrs. Butler. I can see why you managed to capture his heart."

"Ask yourself how he managed to capture mine" she answered mischievously, "now get me out of here without any of the men you still have inside seeing me."

A second before heading back, on the horse she bent down and quietly said "Ms. Watling, you needn't mention Rhett with my visit or yours to our house. I have no idea how he'll take it – even if you are friends."

Belle smiled – "If anyone should call me by my name, it's you, and as for Rhett you may be more right then you imagine."

***Milady***

Belle came. Scarlett hardly recognized the woman with the black net and scarf covering the red hair. She was wearing a respectable grey frock, and looked all too mature to Scarlett with the small wrinkles surrounding her eyes. She introduced to Robert her as Ms. Ruth, and an 'old friend of the family', causing both Belle and Prissy to choke on that bit of introduction. Robert did not seem to notice, though, and he found the lady most agreeable. The day passed all too fast for Belle and too slow for Scarlett who worried the cover would be blown in her face. At five in the afternoon she relieved Prissy with some pocket money and poured herself tea. She was congratulating herself that the day was over as she heard the front door open. Jumping to her feet grabbing the pistol from the drawer, she headed to the door when a wide panama hat and even wider shoulders greeted her.

"Darling!" she exclaimed, forgetting that she was holding a pistol and flying to his embrace.

His eyes were inquisitive as he moved the pistol aside. They did not manage to exchange a word when Wade's call came – "Uncle Rhett's here." The toddler headed toward the stairs dragging Robert by the hand. Rhett's alarmed gaze shifted in a second to a look of sheer joy as he held his wife tightly.

"Wade, let your father rest a second before you jump on him" she scolded her son with a tone none took as serious. Rhett raised the boy to his chest as he embraced Robert with his other hand.

"So, you've met my wife, Robert, son"

Robert looked pitiful when he whispered "Ma wrote you were alive and in Atlanta. I just had to see for myself."

Rhett embraced him while his eyes were kept on his wife.

***Milady***