There is a word that appears in this chapter that people want to argue. Many people assume the word to have been coined recently. That is not the case. There is a further paragraph defending its use at the end.

"Scarlett? Scarlett? Can you hear me?"

Scarlett opened her eyes slowly, her head pounding. She was lying on a bed that certainly wasn't hers. "I think I fainted."

Rhett smiled faintly despite himself. "I know you fainted. You aren't...?"

She looked up at him, genuinely confused. "Aren't what?"

He decided to take the direct path. "The only time I've ever seen you faint was when you were carrying Bonnie." He looked into her eyes, fearing her response, but needing to know. "Are you having a baby?"

Scarlett gingerly sat up on the bed before she began to laugh, hard. She couldn't help it; he was so serious. Since leaving Charleston she'd lived a life of celibacy except for last night when she'd slept with her ex...not her ex. Her nearly hysterical laughter began to subside and she forced a deep breath.

Scarlett smiled at him sheepishly "Not unless I'm having your child, but it's a little early to tell yet."

"What about the prince?"

She could no longer resist a sarcastic comment. "I doubt he's having your child."

Rhett frowned before taking her shoulders in his massive hands. "Be serious, I want to know, have you been sleeping with him?"

She was nearly sarcastic again, but something in his expression caught her. Scarlett who could never read Rhett finally had an insight to him and she clung to it. "Bertie has been my savior, my friend, and the closest thing I've ever had to a brother. He isn't my lover. We've shared a bed, but innocently. We've fallen asleep reading poems, discussing upcoming balls; he comforted me when I'd cry for you. I love you, I have never stopped."

Rhett could see what that honest admission had cost her. Scarlett was trying to be honest with him. The very least he owed her was the same level of honesty. He seated himself next to her on the bed slightly turned toward her so they were face to face. He'd leapt to a conclusion earlier when hearing Scarlett and Prince Albert. Now he wanted them to honestly know everything there was to know before making any decisions.

"My sister lied to you, when she wrote you in Paris. I didn't marry Anne. I considered it. I won't deny it to you. We were going to marry. I wasn't sure though. I missed you; I went to the house in Atlanta only to find it was an orphanage. Very generous and I liked the name, a great deal."

Scarlett smiled back. She'd donated the house on Peachtree Street to a Catholic charity looking to establish an orphanage and school for poor children. There was only one stipulation she'd made. The building had to be known as The Melanie Hamilton Wilkes Children's Home. If the name was ever, and she had it in writing, changed the home would be donated to a trust that would reopen it as a children's home bearing the name of her only female friend.

"I thought you'd be pleased. At least someone is getting some joy out of that monstrosity of a house."

Rhett laughed, "I'm wounded, that house was built with a good deal of ill gotten gains."

She reached up one hand and stroked his face, gently. "But it was also built with the best of intentions."

He caught her hand in his and kissed the palm. "I suppose so. But I digress. Anne began to change; it was subtle at first. After you'd left she became a constant fixture in my mother's house. She and Rosemary were thick as thieves. She was constantly coddling me, discussing books that I'd read, talking oh so wistfully of the children she dreamed of having. I was convinced that was what I wanted. A gentle, giving, Charleston lady."

"You thought you'd found your own Melly?" asked Scarlett quietly.

"Yes, I suppose I thought I had." Rhett's face visibly hardened "But I was wrong. Anne burned the note you'd left for mama with your itinerary. She was getting something for mama and she saw it in the study. She read it, then took it on herself to protect me from myself by burning it."

Scarlett's eyes flashed dangerously. Her voice was a soft purr. "That whey faced little ninny."

He laughed at her gently. Not mocking, just amused. "No elegant French phrases calling down the rage of the gods."

"Not right now. I would like to give her a good hard slap at a later date."

He laughed, "Ah the real Miss O'Hara has joined us."

She reminded him primly. "According to you I am still Mrs. Rhett Butler."

"And so you are. I was furious; you left after I told you to." He put his pointer and index fingers under her chin and tilted her head up so he could look into her eyes. "Since when did you ever done what I've told you to. I let Anne convince me I needed to move on. I had the divorce papers drawn up and sent to Henry Hamilton. I thought I've hurt her once and for all."

"Rhett please…"

He gently put a finger across her lips. "I did want to hurt you. I suppose I did believe that you loved me and I knew that I loved you and I hurt so why shouldn't you?"

"I'm sorry..."

"I appreciate that but please let me finish this bad Greek tragedy. I began to court Anne, not very passionately, but I was done with extreme emotion. I just wanted to have some peace. Then one night Dr. Kiley came to my mother's house.

"I don't remember a Dr. Kiley."

"He volunteered at the Children's Home that my mother and sister oversee. Tall, washed out complexion, condescending."

"Maybe," replied Scarlett thoughtfully.

It isn't important. Anne had been attacked in her home. It was a Yankee solider, the peeping tom."

Scarlet was bemused "But wasn't that a young man that you took under your wing. His name escapes me."

"Tommy. I was at West Point with his brother. Anne didn't know though that I knew who the peeping tom was. I thought she was confused though, she claimed she'd been raped."

"Rhett, I hate her but my God how awful..."

Rhett interrupted her determined to finish. "I told her we'd keep it a secret. She moved into my mother's house because after all people knew that her home had been broken into and my mother and sister were there as chaperones. I didn't want to compromise her." He sighed softly thinking of Ella. "I never got your telegram. I suppose Anne saw a sick child as a threat or perhaps Rosemary had a hand in it. I actually can't say if it was Rosemary or Anne who wrote you in Paris saying I had married. Then just as we were within weeks of marrying I received the divorce papers. Or rather I received a denial of divorce by the state of Georgia. I had bribed a great many people but that only bought me a divorce in my home state, not yours. Because you still owned property in Georgia, your state of birth, it didn't matter that you had resided in Charleston with me as my wife. I didn't take that into account."

"Anne must have been distraught."

"I had to find you to ask you to sign the divorce papers, but I didn't know where you were. I made the mistake of telling Anne that. Anne exploded. She must have been on edge hoping to avoid discovery. She screamed that you were in France, that I still loved you, that the divorce papers were an excuse. She was crazed. She told us that you'd left a detailed plan for the first weeks after you'd left mama's house."

Scarlett frowned. "She must have read the telegram. I only told your mother I was going to Atlanta, then Tara, and then to Boston to settle Wade at Harvard. I was terrified you'd find me in France. I only sent you the telegram because Ella was..." Scarlett couldn't go on.

"Don't, I understand. Then Anne collapsed; she was bleeding. Dr. Kiley rushed over to my mother's house. Anne had miscarried, she was dying, or so we all thought. In that moment of drama Dr. Kiley declared that he loved her, he wasn't sorry they'd had an affair. The good Doctor was married, Anne was never attacked, she was nearly two months along when she told me she'd been attacked. The good Doctor and Anne staged the whole gruesome affair of the attack and assault. If the divorce papers had been filed, I would have married Anne and then when I found out about the baby I would have raised it as my own to keep from seeing Anne ruined."

"Oh Rhett, I don't know what to say. You never deserved what I put you through and you certainly didn't deserve Anne did."

"In Anne's favor though it woke me up from the cocoon I'd built around my emotions in Charleston. I loved you; I wanted to be with you. I just had to find you and somehow fix years of damage."

"But you said that it was just fate that brought you here to Halverston House."

"It was fate, in the guise of Sir John Morland. I went to Atlanta thinking to find you there. I contacted Henry Hamilton who refused to tell me your whereabouts. However he had a letter for me that the nuns had sent over from the Peachtree Street House. Henry said he was going to forward the letter to my lawyers but since I was already there I should have it. It was an invitation to join Sir John Morland for a hunt in England at a friend's home."

Scarlett laughed "And his friend just happened to be the future king of England? It seems that fate has once again flung us together despite all our best efforts to be apart."

"How romantic, you've been reading romance novels again?"

"Hardly."

"So here I am, I find the woman I love is the supposed mistress of a future king. For your average woman that is certainly a lofty career goal."

"For the last time he is just my friend. The Prince has certain urges that without a wife might endanger his future on the throne."

"The Prince has a wife."

"Not one he can bring himself to sleep with."

"Scarlett, you're in you ever subtle cylindrical way telling me that the heir to the British throne is..."

Scarlett nodded "A sexual deviant, an abomination in the eyes of God and man, or a homosexual. Take your choice when it comes to the title you chose to apply to him. I myself call him Bertie, but that's me."

"So all this time you've been his blind."

"Gambling terminology, how very Rhett. I've missed you."

Concerning the word homosexual, it's a tricky word. Oddly, no term existed for "homosexuality" in ancient Greece - there were only a variety of expressions referring to specific homosexual roles. Experts find this baffling, as the old Greek culture regarded male/male love in the highest regard. According to several linguists, the English physician Maria Benkert did not coin the word "homosexual" until 1869. Since this story takes place around 1880 or so the word would have been around in England for almost 20 years.

Although I took a great deal of liberties with this story, and if you don't know British monarchs for 200 Alex you don't even have to read this story with a suspended sense of disbelief lol.

Homosexual actually has been an entry in the Webster's dictionary since 1872. (Lesbian gained entry lol my little joke in the 1890 addition) I took a words within the language class in college my favorite was
Fked Up was entered in 1951
Fck in 1759
and bull dyke in 1932