Will finished strapping on his wooden leg and then picked up his breeches, looking down fondly at the slumbering Scarlett O'Hara. He shook his head. What am I going to do? I have to stop this nonsense. The past fifteen years have been damned good to me, better than I deserve, really.

Will had initially refurbished this former slave hut on the edge of Tara, hoping to hire some darkies who wanted to stay on full time—Big Sam had his own hut about half an acre off. But quite often Will had used this shed for his little dalliances with various ladies, married or otherwise, of Clayton County…and now he'd been caught.

Shame, really, Will really hoped things weren't at an end. He had a nice little bed in here, and a stove, and sometimes when there wasn't much to do; he'd come here and read a paperback "Penny Dreadful" novel. And then other times, of course, he had company.

But now Suellen, Will's wife of fifteen years was very upset, and when Sue was annoyed, she ate, and she screamed. Will didn't mind the eating, he'd never been all that physically enthralled with Sue to begin with, but all the hullabaloo he could do without.

Unfortunately, at one point, Suellen had told Will that she would find her own dalliance, and suggested that Tony Fontaine would be a suitable candidate, which had unfortunately made Will laugh a bit. That had made Sue even angrier, and Will was trying to stay out of her way, now. If only he could stay away from her sister, as well!

But, as in a lot of cases, Suellen didn't blame Will, just Scarlett. Scarlett had snatched Sue's first fiancée and then Prissy, the eternal gossip had reported that Scarlett had suggested to Will that he marry Careen, as she was worth "two of Suellen".

Will had been with many women, but he'd never been a husband up until now. Usually when trouble came, he was departing out the back, and he couldn't leave now, he lived here.

Will Benteen had had an interesting life. He didn't talk too much about it, or anything. After he'd been dropped off to Tara by another Reb, and then nursed to good health, he'd done his best to work around the plantation, and he'd done laboring work on a number of farms, just for cash to wander, and he was at home agriculturally.

Will could plant, and hoe, and steal the odd chicken, and he'd gotten the plantation back on its feet, and it was his home, he felt, and everyone wanted him to stay.

And finally, since he really had nothing to go back to, he'd married Suellen. The ladies of Tara had assumed that Will's family was dead, or something, but in truth he had no family.

But Will had the ophthalmologic disorder known as the "wandering eye" and had made female friends throughout the County, Jonesboro barmaids, darky girls, Sally Fontaine, Cathleen Calvert, as well as having bedded three of the four Tarleton sisters, and he doubted any of them knew he'd been with any of the others!

Of course everyone knew Will had been with Scarlett, because Suellen could not shut her mouth…and peculiarly, this had made Will even more attractive to girls in the area.

Yes, Will had had these problems before! Will had been taken out of a Richmond orphanage along with three other boys, by an Abolitionist farmer called Levison.

Levison had told the boys that he didn't believe in slavery, and would teach them the "trade" of farming, and had nearly worked Will to death, with a whip in one hand and a Bible in the other…but it didn't weigh on his conscience, this Levison, for after all, the boys weren't slaves.

Will had hastily departed Levison's place three years later after 13 year old Sally Levison had told her Pa that she was with child, and she believed she knew the responsible party…though it could have been any of the orphan boys, really.

After a sojourn with a traveling medicine man, Will had joined Clive's Circus, and had spent a decade putting up tents and leading elephants about, but then he'd had another messy involvement with one of the acrobats, a young lady insistent on Will's hand in marriage, even after she discovered the ringmaster's niece also had matrimonial plans for young Benteen. Again, he departed.

It mystified Will how he got into these peculiar situations. He was small and a not particularly attractive man, but he'd discovered that women were fascinated by men who had little to say, and truly, Will didn't think more than one thought at a time. When he was chewing tobacco and sitting there, women thought he was listening considerately.

Will met more women and had a variety of careers including shoe clerk, mercantile hand, feed store worker, deputy sheriff, and lots more farming as he traveled around, making enjoyable errors (as long as he stayed alive) with the various housewives of the South.

Will had, in his time as farm hand and overseer in different fields, met happy and unhappy darkies. He'd met well treated slaves, and black men who owned OTHER black men. He'd read Harriet Beecher Stowe's ridiculous hyperbolic novel, and wondered at what Yankees thought about the treatment of Negroes. If any master was like Simon Legree, their slaves would be not fit to work, they'd be lying around bleeding!

When Will discovered the events of April '61 at Fort Sumter, he joined the Confederates immediately. Even after losing a leg, he'd stayed on with his regiment until, in a near coma; he'd been dropped off at Tara.

After Will had married Suellen, he was still rather quieted down by the war, and tried to be a dutiful husband, but he apparently was not done with his carousing. And tomcatting had not interfered with his marriage or his duties at Tara until Suellen had caught Will and Scarlett in the granary one afternoon, and now all this nonsense had started.

How had things started with Scarlett? Will had not pursued it, but they spent a long time talking about things…Scarlett came up once every few months to rest up, and even more after her problems with her husband, this Butler fellow.

They'd gone from talking about farming to talking about life; to not doing a lot of talking at all…Scarlett was quite an excitable woman. She'd told Will frankly after her first coupling that she really enjoyed this sort of thing, relations, so to speak, and wished it was as available to her as it was to men. Will had nothing to say to this, as to most things.

And they'd tried to break it off, even before Sue's discovery, but for five years it had been going on, and it was just one of those things. What amused Will was, Scarlett thought he was in love with her. He was a little bit in love with the quiet but enchanting widow, Sally Munro Fontaine, though he knew if her murderous little in-laws discovered the dalliance, Will would be swinging from a high tree!

But although Will was drawn to Scarlett, he knew it absolutely had to end.

Now Scarlett appeared to be awakening, and Will had overheard Grandma Fontaine and the blind nephew, Beau walking past earlier, and he hoped they'd take another road back to the house. Will was going to tell Scarlett that this was the last time, he was putting his pants on for the last time. And that he was going to be true to Suellen, though he'd never give up Randa or Hetty Tarleton, and certainly not the Widow Fontaine.

But he would be firm with Scarlett!

Katie Scarlett opened her eyes, thrust out her chest and stretched her arms. "I'm not quite ready to tie on my stays, come down with me here, just a little bit!"

Will tried to walk away, but the woman was a damned magnet!