Spoiler Alert for Chapter 40 teaser below, don't read until you've read Chapter 39 please!:

On a whim, Rhett decided to change the subject. "What did you do with all the old furnishings, by the way?" He watched her face for any signs of discomfort.

"It's spread all over. Some of the more expensive and bulky items are consigned." That dreadful dining room table and chairs, to be precise. Bad memories there. "We reupholstered a good bit, and sent several larger items to Tara. I gave a few pieces to the Tarletons, and then a few more to the veterans' home. Pork and Dilcey took a thing or two. Even Mammy has her favorite chair from the nursery." No way was she going to mention the cabin theater.

"Ah," he said, feeling more like himself now the laudanum had kicked in. "There was a settee at the top of the landing, red patterned velvet, with a matching mirror as I recall. It had—potential."

She visibly blanched, and then smoothed her face out in that new way he found most vexing.

"Hogwash. You hated it most of all."

"Au contraire, mon fraire. It was long enough for me to stretch out on, and few settees are. I should like to purchase it back."

"You don't say," she sniffed, unconvinced.

He dropped the game. "What happened to it, Scarlett?"

"A friend of Prissy's asked that it be delivered to her mistress."

"And where would her mistress have placed such a finely crafted piece?"

She narrowed her eyes. He knew.

"Some vile low-brow haunt, as I understand it."

And there it was—her anger, her nearly frightening vitality. He had missed it so. He couldn't help but goad her on.

"No doubt it could be that, or perhaps a richly decorated, velvet and red silk-soaked happy place with music and laughter—"

"—where perverse wretches spend inordinate amounts of their time and money," she interrupted, her eyes full-on flashing now, "in vain and feeble attempts to improve their insufferable moods."

Their eyes met and she nearly laughed. If she hadn't known better, she'd say he was about to do the same thing.

Then they both broke, chuckles becoming louder the more they tried to contain them. They laughed outright then, leaning together, him holding his ribs in place. As they calmed she gestured toward his neck with the cravat in her hand and he leaned down for her to drape it around his neck and tie it in a most efficient manner, despite still giggling. It felt like old times. If she had ever tied his cravat during old times, that is.

She opened her mouth to say—what was she going to say? When a noise from the stairs saved her.

"Tonight," he whispered, before Leif appeared coming up the stairs, Wade in tow.

OOOOooooOOOOoooo

Inspirations:

WATER, water I desire,

Here's a house of flesh on fire;

Ope the fountains and the springs,

And come all to bucketings:

What ye cannot quench pull down;

Spoil a house to save a town:

Better 'tis that one should fall,

Than by one to hazard all.

—The Scare-Fire, Robert Herrick, 1591-1674

A wound gets worse when it's treated with neglect

—Stevie Nicks, Talk to Me

Disclaimer: Were it mine, so many things would be different. Sigh.

A/N Happy Valentine's Day a bit early! By popular demand, here's a flashback chapter to Rhett's conversation in Belle's office, which was alluded to in Chapter 38. I could probably make the transition fancier, and do a lot of research on how to write flashback scenes, to improve the flow and artfulness of it, but I decided not to and went straight to it. Enjoy.

Chapter 39

The night before (Thursday) at The Painted Lady ….

After propelling Belle into her office, Rhett shut the door and then walked over to the mantelpiece and leaned against it.

"Explain."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Don't play coy with me, Belle. Enlighten me as to how that settee and mirror came to be in your establishment."

Belle took a seat in her favorite chair, leaving the desk between them as a buffer.

"Miz Butler was clearin' out that house for the renovatin' and that settee was the last thing she hung onto." Rhett huffed in response, then motioned for her to continue.

"She said it was too big and wouldn't fit in with the new place even if it was reupholstered. One of my new kitchen girls is friends with one of hers—that Prissy." He nodded.

"She was over there visitin' and heard Scar—Miz Butler say as to how she had to get rid of it and fussin' about the marble layers needin' to come in and get the floor laid after the workers ripped out that huge staircase."

He lifted a brow. It hadn't occurred to him that she'd totally remove the enormously expensive inlaid and burled walnut staircase, although he briefly felt a curious relief at the idea, and not just because of its looks. Perhaps those monstrous gas lights at the bottom of the stairs will be gone as well. This hotel is already proving to be a bonanza, indeed.

Belle continued. "And that settee was in the way. Phoebe, my new girl, told her that her boss lady might like it."

"And never mentioned who her boss lady happened to be."

"No. I s'pose things was hectic."

He knew how focused Scarlett could be. Still seemed like there should be more to the story. He gestured for her to continue.

"So next thing I know that manservant of yours comes pullin' a wagon up right outside the back door with it, and the mirror too, and said his mistress gifted it with her blessin', and I would be doing her a favor by takin' it all. I knew exactly where it came from soon as I saw him, he's been drivin' her all over town for the last few years.

"Keep in mind, s'far as I knew, she was well aware of where he brought it, and who he brought it to.

"So as soon as night fell I went over there to Peachtree and banged on the front door," he raised an eyebrow again, then moved to take a seat across from her, drumming his fingers lightly on the arm of the chair.

"No one saw me, I wore a scarf over my head and a dark hooded cloak to boot," she assured him. At the words 'hooded cloak' his fingers hesitated a fraction of a second, then resumed their drumming.

"I was right mad, you see. She pulled me in quick and I asked her what the meanin' of it was and she said she had no idea Phoebe was talkin' about me, and she seemed as surprised as I was so I believed her. She said I could keep it if I wanted, it was good quality and cost a pretty penny," Belle stopped to catch her breath. "And she swore she hadn't meant anything by sending it over.

"That was all the discussion about it. I decided to keep it, it goes well in that room, and you might not have noticed it if that bottle hadn't of knocked over." She looked across at him in clear defiance.

"And were you going to tell me?"

"She asked me not to mention it to anybody."

"Belle." A warning tone here.

She shrugged. "Maybe I would've. Sometime down the road. It's just another red sofa in a place full of 'em. I'm surprised you recognized it, to tell the truth. You're never around," she gave him an accusing glance here before dusting off the ruffle on her sleeve. "And I plum forgot about it."

"Hmm." He reached inside his jacket for his tobacco. "You 'plum' forgot about it. Yet you were in my house, with my wife. That part at least must have been memorable."

Sensing his initial anger had subsided somewhat, she relaxed minutely.

"She was fair polite. Offered me a shot of brandy and I took it. She treated me maybe not like an equal, but not like trash, either, business-like.

"You know, seems like she's changed, grown up some over the last few years. I hear things. She spends most of her time with her children, well, she did, up until she started remodeling. And God help anyone who tries to mistreat those kids. She'll take their head off on the spot."

"Dare I detect a hint of goodwill toward the much-maligned Mrs. Butler?"

Belle sniffed. "Well, I've despised her forever, and you always had rotten things to share. People around here love to talk bad about her, and like as not, I used to join in.

"But she's changed her tune. She was down for a while, you knew that, everyone knew that after," she hesitated when his hand stilled again. "After everything that happened, even though she worked hard to hide it. Seems like she's perked up. Plus she's got some powerful people on her side now as I hear it."

" 'The smallest worm will turn being trodden on, And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood,' " Rhett quoted as he leafed through the tobacco pouch. "Scarlett could hardly be described as a small worm. Or a dove, for that matter."

She frowned. "What the devil are you talkin' about?"

"Nothing my dear," he smiled, and it was an old smile, one she hadn't seen in a while, which emboldened her.

"She even told off those nasty buzzards a couple of weeks ago out on her front sidewalk."

A prick of interest. "How's that?"

"As I heard it, a gaggle of them old southern society types was outside gawkin' at all the construction first day it started, and then that big bulldog lookin' woman—the one what owns the bakery—Merriweather," he nodded. "—started huffin' and puffin' and givin' her down the road 'bout turnin' her home into a place of business and Scar–Miz Butler told her she better stop frownin' because she knew very well it made her mustache grow faster."

Rhett's eyes widened and he guffawed, nearly dropping the tobacco, then coughed, placing a hand against his ribs, which did not go unnoticed. "I would have liked to have witnessed that."

"She said it. Front of God and everybody. Lots of people was listenin', too."

"I also heard," she peeked at him out of the corner of her eye, willing to share now the subject had shifted from her visit with his wife. "That when people asked her where you were she announced to the entire crowd that you didn't care to," she wrinkled her brow in concentration here, "to disclose your whereabouts, and if they had an—an urgent need to contact you they should speak to your attorney." She finished with a flourish and a grin, proud that she had remembered the conversation practically verbatim.

A moment of silence. "That's how she answered when the Old Guard inquired as to my whereabouts?"

"Yep. 'Your guess is as good as mine,' she said, as the story goes, even to her auntie, that Pittypat Hamilton."

He frowned. A rather flippant reply from Scarlett. Normally she went into elaborate stories to hide her ignorance of his various wanderings.

He felt like there was more but decided against pursuing it at the moment.

"Enough about that." He rubbed his face. "There's another matter." Belle internally braced herself.

"How long has Leif Erickson been a customer of The Painted Lady?"

Belle let out a tiny breath. "Well, he came to town about seven or eight months ago, I reckon. And we'd see him on a pert-near regular basis after that. It slowed down after he went into business with your wife, but when he does come now, he has, you know, more of a type in mind …." her voice trailed off at his expression.

"A Scarlett type. So you've been supplying him with dark-haired, green-eyed girls since they've been in business together, correct?"

Belle nodded, never taking her eyes off him.

"How accommodating of you."

"Well, not just for him, Rhett. It's been a popular type around here might now as long as she's been in Atlanta, goin' back to durin' the war."

Belle went on, more than a tad nervous at the turn of the conversation.

"It started about the time you bought that dance with her. Everyone was talkin' about it. The feisty little widow dragged out of mournin' for her husband by the rich and scandalous blockade runner."

Dragged her twice.

She sighed. "It's one of the reasons I sent that money to the hospital with Miz Wilkes in your handkerchief."

He furrowed his brow. "Pardon?"

"Back then, you remember, right after that bazaar. Surely she told you about it sometime over the years."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

She took a deep breath. She'd stepped in it now. "After that bazaar dance and everyone was talkin' about her and talkin' about you. I gave some money to Miz Wilkes wrapped up in one of those handkerchiefs with your initials. I knew she would show it to her right off."

"Why would you do such a thing?"

She leveled him with a look. "Because I wanted her to know you paid good money in gold for my company, too."

A ragged puzzle piece, worn and tattered, floated slowly into place. Rhett squared his jaw. Doesn't matter now, he told himself. Belle wisely dropped that line of conversation and returned to the previous one.

"It started back up after she married Frank Kennedy and bought her businesses. Demand is always high but goes up when she's done anything new. After the, er, situation with Mr. Wilkes it peaked again, and now with the hotel and General Hampton callin'," she stopped, slightly exasperated at the grimace on his face.

"Have you never noticed that I always try to have at least one girl close to that description, if not two?"

He shrugged and grunted in reply. "I suppose." They never looked too much like Scarlett no matter how hard Belle tried, at least not to him. She'd always been one of a kind if nothing else.

Belle glanced at him sharply. "Surely you didn't think they were all for you, Rhett. It's not an easy type to find. Those eyes, raven black hair, and magnolia skin? Hair can be dyed, sure, but not many have that silky straight stuff, there was that gypsy gal once, her hair and eyes was close but she'd been livin' outside so much she was near dark as you."

"Do go on." There was a distinctly dangerous tone to his voice that she ignored as she snorted.

"I don't have to tell you that men have fantasies and that's what we sell here. You know that better'n most. They think about the girls and the down and dirty stuff, sure. But they also think of the one they really want to be with, the one they can't have or who won't have them." He shifted a little in his seat. Coming too near uncomfortable territory.

"And it works the other way. The girls think about the men or boys they want to be with, their first loves when they were young and innocent. It … helps them, doin' their job. But all people like to go back to those times in their minds.

"They all want to pretend, about what they lost or what they never had …" she trailed off at the look on his face.

His mind flashed back to a night a lifetime ago, on a New Orleans honeymoon he'd waited for forever, with a brand-new bride he'd loved. A contrary girl-woman, one who valued money above everything, yet whose love could not be bought.

Then he was on the ocean again, in his schooner after the storm, in his fever dreams. Remembering how it was his first few times with a woman. Power and potential and feeling alive. Aside from a hard crush on the first harlot he'd bedded at fifteen, he'd never been in love before Scarlett. Perhaps that was the problem.

Plowing through the women beneath him for the last few years, quite literally, drunk as a skunk, chasing that feeling again. Lucky he survived. How was he different from the other men who visited this sporting house and places like it, trying to recapture their past, wanting to feel powerful again and desired and in control, wanting to remember their youth and past loves?

He realized with a start that Belle was still talking.

" … it's supply and demand and there's a boatload of demand, Rhett, and not a boatload of supply, haven't you noticed, well, it was always one of your preferences. I have scouts out all over."

He openly scowled at her then.

"Simmer down. I wouldn't necessarily always say it's a 'Scarlett' type they're after," she attempted to placate his humor. "I have all kinds of girls, just like I have blondes with blue eyes and redheads and brunettes and girls with big brown eyes, too. Men like variety, and I'm in the business of givin' it to them."

Rhett sat back in his seat and relaxed infinitesimally. She did have a point.

Just then a knock sounded as the door opened and a girl stepped in, her dark hair pulled back in a signature chignon, dressed in an overly showy, but still significantly verdant green silk gown, a fake emerald and diamond necklace, paste to be sure, but good paste, circling her pale neck.

Her eyes were an odd shade, more gold than green, but beautiful in their way. She wasn't Scarlett. She might do quite well in a pinch.

The girl smiled at the devilishly handsome man in the room before addressing Belle. "Please excuse the intrusion, you wanted to see me?"

Belle cleared her throat. Nell should have handled this. "Yes, Annie. The big Swede's here. Room 208, after he's done with Sara." She smiled stiffly. "Go on, don't make him wait."

The girl swept out of the room. Surely it was his imagination, but he almost thought he caught the slightest waft of lemon verbena as she passed.

A vein began to throb visibly in Rhett's left temple. Belle threw up her hands in vexation.

"I'm tryin' to retire, Rhett! Gotta make hay while the sun shines and she's makin' headlines all over the place!" She refused to look him in the eye. "I'm not doin' it to be mean or poke fun at her. It's just good business."

"You've done wrong and you know it, Belle. Don't try to muddy the issue here. How did you think I'd react?"

She looked genuinely surprised. "I thought you'd think it was funny. You and I used to laugh at her all the time."

He appeared taken aback at her response for a moment but said nothing.

She bridled moodily. "You think I didn't know you were thinkin' about her every time you were with me after that dance?"

"Not every time, Belle."

"Humph." She reached for a glass. "Maybe not when you were too drunk to know or too far gone to care."

She drained the glass and set it back down. "I'm movin' on so I can finally tell you this. I didn't always like how you were to her. How you—conducted yourself. I pretended sometimes to agree with you when I really didn't. Sure, she deserved some of what you did, but not all of it. I just thought we might have a chance if you ever got past her so I went along.

"It was stupid," she admitted. "Just a fantasy of my own. I know my place. But as I said before, we all like to dream."

Rhett gave her a look, and it was not unkind.

She appeared a tad ashamed then. "And I only started dressin' the girls up so much like her—recently."

"Oh," he said, sitting back and crossing his long legs at the ankles. "Recently."

"She's got that thing, that pull. If I could bottle it I could have quit years ago. She's lit up from the inside, and men are drawn in even when they don't want to be, I didn't see it before but now I do."

"What do you mean now you do? What's different now?"

"Since I met her and talked to her. You know I wondered for years what the appeal could be. I'd heard things, and from you, but I'd never been that close and in a conversation. While we was talkin' that night I went over I started thinkin' about all the money I could have made if I could actually hire her, and not just girls who have similar colorin'. That's how I came up with the idea of fixin' the girls up just like her. Same thing I was doin' before, just steppin' it up a notch or two.

"I don't put them out on the floor like that, understand. I'm discreet, you know that. It's by special request, for my very best customers. And it works. My profits have gone sky-high. Some even pay extra for the girls to get worked up and yell at them a bit before, well, you know. I woulda thought you'd appreciate that."

He narrowed hIs eyes. "You certainly did pick up on a great deal about her in one short meeting."

She lifted a shoulder in studied nonchalance. "You always said she was an easy read. And I knew a lot from what you and other people had told me before. The visit sorta made it all come together."

Something about this discussion seemed off. She wasn't telling him everything, which surprised Rhett, and smarted a bit. He decided to change tactics. "There's more that concerns me. Erickson and I had a couple of run-ins in New Orleans several years back, and Scarlett's got her finger in some large and treacherous pies."

He didn't want to go into too much detail. Belle had not been fond of the idea of him running another brothel with another woman as madam, although he knew her sources had kept her informed at the time. The underworld bore no secrets within its ranks.

"So I wonder if the attraction is mutual. He could try to hurt her to get to me, or the other people she's become involved with. Charming her, seducing her."

"Well, he's not fakin' his attraction to her or he wouldn't be here," she waved at the door. "Doin' this. He's extra enthusiastic with her lookalikes."

"As I understand it," she added hurriedly at his frown.

"Anyway, you said she's admitted to loving you all along for the last two years."

'Well, you never know with Scarlett," he said with derision. "And Erickson is her type, after all."

At his words, Belle remembered just the night before and how a graying blond head bent to help her, looked her in the eyes, and treated her as a person, every bit as respectful as his saint of a wife had been. Explaining to her, for the first time in her life, that her problem with the way she saw letters and words did not reflect on her intelligence or worth, assuring her most earnestly that there were methods to use and that he would help.

She smiled as she recalled his promise. 'You will read,' he'd said. "I will make sure of it.'. Then looked back to Rhett, who was eying her quizzically. She shook herself. Needed to pay attention here.

"Perhaps Erickson's kind to her. Women like that, you see." The words were out before she could stop them.

If he didn't know better, he'd say Belle had somewhat of an attitude this evening.

"She eats the kind ones alive."

"Not that one, he's mighty cocksure. And from what the girls tell me, he has plenty of reason to be."

Oh yes, an attitude for certain, and now she was baiting him.

He gave her a penetrating stare and saw, crystalline in its clarity, the ringmaster she played in this carnival. A vaudeville act, and she a weary clown. For a blinding moment he grasped exactly how he'd spent years in this tent, full of smoke and mirrors, play-acting a life, when there was a genuine family, infinitely flawed, but real, at home. He'd gone out nearly every night, even when his little girl was alive. To this garish and sad existence. And he'd called his home a monstrosity. What a strange world he lived in.

He looked Belle up and down, still attractive but aging, still selling that facade. Why did he ever spend so much time in this place with all its fake charm and fake solace? The alcohol must have helped, he mused. Lost years and bitter memories assailed him. He felt ill, and sickeningly sober. God, he was sober. Dead sober.

He nearly made a flimsy excuse and bolted from the room before the vision faded back to his friend sitting in front of him, the bare traces of beauty and the very last vestiges of her love for him still shining, albeit faintly, in her face. He sighed. She'd been too good to him, in spite of this last little stunt, to cut her the way he wanted to at the moment.

"How many do you have right now, Belle? That look like her and you dress up in that manner?" He waved at the door, much as she had a few minutes before.

"Three," she said begrudgingly. "Like I said, I try to keep at least two, but I got lucky with Annie." He briefly wondered what kind of get-up she'd put Sara in tonight before he continued.

"She could use this against me, legally, if we were to formally sever our union, you understand, as well as personally. I'd like you to stop employing such women. And perhaps relocate the ones already here.

"And the 'costuming' stops. Tonight."

She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it.

"It doesn't matter if you're discreet. We're still married, Belle. I can't allow whores dressed up as caricatures of Scarlett parading around an Atlanta brothel. And one owned by my former mistress, at that."

He could see the reluctance in her eyes.

"It ends tonight, Belle. I don't," he ran a hand through his hair. "I don't like it."

"I see,'' she said quietly. "All right."

"And I'd like a list of your 'special' patrons." He bared his animal white teeth at her. "But not at the moment. I've had enough of the subject for the time being."

They were silent for a minute. The mood had become entirely too serious. He patted her hand and winked, a smirk curving his lips.

"So, do you mean to tell me back when I owned half this place I made money off men who were paying expressly for harlots who looked like my wife?"

"Well, yes. And so did I. A long time before she was your wife, too." They looked at each other and burst into genuine laughter, old friends in on a good joke, not in a cruel way, but at the extreme irony of the situation. A strange world, indeed.

He sobered as the laughter died down. "She can never know."

"Agreed." Belle felt an odd reminiscence of a previous exchange with the woman in question.

"Now," Rhett set the bedraggled bottle of whiskey between them on the desk. "Tell me every bit of gossip you've heard regarding Scarlett and her new endeavors since my last visit, and leave nothing out."

Belle suppressed a smile. Gossip, she could do.

OOOOooooOOOOoooo

Fun Facts:

New Orleans is all Mardi Gras crazy right now, as you may know, and I subscribe to a NOLA feed as my half-sister lives there. Something popped up about France giving land to pirates if they'd marry a prostitute and move to Louisiana back in the 1700s, so I had to check it out:

'In 1719, John Law (a Scottish economist who somehow came to manage most of France's economy at the time) decided to offer prisoners in Paris something they could not refuse. He offered them their freedom as long as they were willing to marry a prostitute and head off to Louisiana. Anyone who agreed to the bargain was shackled together until they boarded a ship to sail to the Gulf Coast. John Law went as far as to raid hospitals for drunks and disorderly soldiers, find prostitutes and the black sheep of society, paupers and just about anyone who wouldn't put up a fuss, and they were then forcibly taken to the docks to be shipped off to the colony. Those who came willingly were offered land and provisions.

Most of the people who arrived in Louisiana were hungry, had little provisions, and had no shelter. The area where they landed quickly became crowded and there was no one waiting to provide them with jobs, food or a home. To that end, many of the arrivals became ill and even died before they ever got to experience the garden of Eden or do anything to build upon the wealth of John Law's investment.

The new immigrants and the old ones were settling in the town of Biloxi (which would later be part of Mississippi but it was part of what was called Louisiana at the time and it was the part that John Law could profit from). But with the influx of criminals and other less than ideal immigrants, many of the well-to-do immigrants who had come in an attempt to shape the new colony found themselves unwilling to stick around. They started moving East to New Orleans to get away from the starving criminals that were invading their little town.' History collection dot com

Sooo, it wasn't just pirates who got the deal, and it wasn't really Louisiana, but the Biloxi coast. Which makes sense, because I used to visit that place often, and, whew.

I have another fun fact along this line but I'm sleepy and going to bed. Check back tomorrow if you're interested.

Almost forgot - The worm-dove quote is Shakespeare. But of course :)

Closing A/N - Thank you for your wonderful words of encouragement. And for those who are not so encouraging, meh. I do what I can do. Keep in mind this was a flashback, so the next chapter, which is well in the works and should follow this one fairly quickly, will take up again at the hotel scene with Solange. So don't flip out over this one being only 4000 words. There's a good bit to come soon. Again, Happy Valentine's, especially to the non-Super Bowl watchers like me, who will spend a quiet afternoon tomorrow reading. Or shopping. It's a really good day to shop. Peace and love, misscyn.