Chapter 5
Rhett began to head inside and walk up the wide stairs. Scarlett hesitatingly followed.
"Rhett" began Scarlett, fighting desperation from her voice and clenching her knuckles to keep her hands from shaking. "I've respected you since I first saw you at that barbeque at Twelve Oaks. I know I never admitted it, but in my heart , I did. When Cathleen Calvert told me that you had been ostracized from your family just because you wouldn't marry a girl after taking her buggy riding, I respected you because to me that looked like common sense. A man shouldn't have to marry a fool just because an accident caused him to be stranded with her the whole night. "
Scarlett walked quickly, her breath coming in short gasps. "And.. and I respected you from the way you sized up the profits in the war,your predictions, even your schemes.. I could somehow understand that you were doing at a larger scale what any Southern gentleman was doing. And I always respected you for getting me out of tight spots because you always did something, even if it always want the right thing. I loved you for you thought like me. I could tell you anything and you wouldn't be surprised. I know I've always chided you about Bonnie.. But I think I was jealous and that made me spiteful. I thought you were a fine father..and when I was pregnant again, I wanted it to be a boy, as dark eyed and handsome as you.."
Rhett turned to Scarlett as she said this and looked long and hard at her. Scarlett could detect no love in his gaze but some other emotion, equally intense yet rather forbidding seemed to darken the bold features of his swarthy face. Scarlett jumped as she suddenly felt his hands gripping her shoulders. She was jerked up, and in an instant, her face was so close to his that his hot, heavy breath formed drops on her lips. He began to kiss her, at first slowly and then raising intensity. His hands went around her waist, pressing her against the hard muscles of his solid frame. Scarlett returned his kisses but as his fingers roughly dug past the lacings of her dress, she suddenly drew back. It was a faint movement, a momentary hesitation but Rhett caught it easily.
"Still putting on your charms and airs, I see-"
"Of course not!" snapped, Scarlett. "And if I did,it was only to look into your eyes for some hope of reconciliation.. of love..."
"I told you I don't love you-"
"Then why did you kiss me?"
Suddenly Rhett's eyes lit up with a blazing fiery light. His hands pried open the front of her dress and he pushed his head against her chest. Scarlett's heart beat as fast as a drum. "Who is going to calm down that tempest in you?!" asked Rhett, angrily. "Me?!"
"Rhett, please-" said Scarlett, her voice breaking under the emotional strain.
"Shall I come back to you to Atlanta and you set off on some other obstinate adventure, deny any fault or absurdities on your part and use me for calming your fears.. What about my freedom? Even now you come to me like child. You don't even realize how much things have changed after Bonnie's death. How much I've changed... I do not love you. I do not love the tempest in you.. It frightens me! I might lose myself forever-"
Scarlett wiped her years and stared back at Rhett. He turned away. She began to speak,
"I've watched you, Rhett Butler. I saw you looking exhilarated during that night when the Yankees set Atlanta on fire. I saw you gazing at the leaping fires with enjoyment and contempt in your eyes. I know that you are used to tempests.. And I know it attracts you...you are attracted to chaos."
Rhett turned back and he was staring at her in surprise and shock.
"You think I don't notice these things.." said Scarlett. "But I do-"