Scarlett's heart palpitated wildly in her chest as she flung open the door to Rhett's bedroom and took in the sight before her. Rhett was sat at the bottom his bed, holding Bonnie tenderly in his arms. He was clad only in his trousers and dressing gown, the latter of which had parted slightly at the front, exposing the top of his chest to her hungry eyes.
'Mama, I had a nightmare!' Bonnie trilled loudly, causing Scarlett to rip her gaze away from her husband and focus on her daughter. She noticed that Bonnie's eyes seemed to be shining with excitement rather than fear, and breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that her stunt with the cheese hadn't caused her daughter any real distress.
'What about?' she asked.
Instead of answering, Bonnie frowned as if she didn't know quite what to say. After a moment of awkward silence, Rhett cut through the quiet with his reassuring drawl. 'It was about a bear, wasn't it, honey?' he said, rubbing Bonnie's back comfortingly, his face the very picture of fatherly concern.
Bonnie smiled and nodded her head vigorously in agreement. 'He was huge, Mama, and he kept chasing me. It was really scary!'
But though she talked of being afraid, Scarlett couldn't help but notice that Bonnie looked anything but, and, in a rare flash of intuition, Scarlett wondered if maybe Bonnie hadn't made up the story in order to get them all to sleep together again.
Touched, and more than a little flattered, by her daughter's actions, Scarlett was about to reach out and draw Bonnie in for a hug when something in Rhett's face caught her attention. His head was pointed in her direction and yet his eyes were turned sharply away as if he was reticent to look at her directly.
Sensing her gaze, Rhett stiffened and quickly wrapped his arms more securely around Bonnie. Moving her to his hip, he stood up. 'Yes, well, there's no use in dwelling on it. It's best to just forget about it, baby, and try and get some sleep,' he said swiftly, clearly keen to bring the conversation to an end.
Scarlett assumed that his terse words were meant as a dismissal. A sign that he wanted her leave before Bonnie had a chance to ask her to stay. But instead of putting Bonnie back in her own bed as Scarlett expected him to, he strode round to the head of his own and deposited her carefully under the covers.
Before Scarlett could move, Rhett returned to her side, surprising her by silently taking her arm and guiding her round to the other side of the bed. With his free arm, he gestured for her to get in. Shocked, Scarlett snapped her head up to stare at him, but he steadfastly refused to meet her gaze.
Confused, but unwilling to turn down such a golden opportunity, Scarlett slipped into the bed without a word, sliding across until she was lying next to Bonnie. Rhett paused for a second to untie his robe. He threw it carelessly onto a nearby chair, Scarlett emitting a small gasp as the strong, unyielding expanse of his swarthy chest was exposed to her for the first time in years.
As he lowered himself onto the bed, his dark face as blank and inscrutable as ever, Scarlett felt as if she had been hypnotised by the sheer physical force that emanated from his large body. It prevented her from moving a muscle as he drew closer, holding her captive as if she was some sort of prey caught up in the thrall of its predator.
She knew that, like a predator, he had the power to kill her, not only physically, but emotionally, too, for if she opened up her heart to him only to be rejected then she did not think she would be able to survive it. But, even knowing this, she still could not bring herself to run away. She wanted his touch, longed for it, even. For it appealed to something deep and primal inside of her, a kink in her nature that had always set her apart from the other women she knew. A kink that meant she could never truly be happy in a normal, domesticated marriage like the rest of Atlanta's respectable citizens, but could only ever find true completion with a man as wild and untamed as herself. A man who was moving closer to her with each passing second.
She felt him before he had even touched her. Waves of warmth seemed to roll off his body, surging through the air to beach against her tingling skin. She opened her mouth, needing to say something, knowing that she would go mad if she stayed silent even one moment longer, but then Bonnie's cry tore through the quiet room, startling her.
'I want to be in the middle!' Bonnie whined, instantly dousing the fire that had been kindling inside Scarlett. Rhett froze, a frown clouding his features.
'You were too hot in the middle last night, Bonnie,' he said, his tone a little sharper than it usually was when he addressed her.
Bonnie seemed to notice the difference, for she cuddled closer to Scarlett, pouting. Her lower lip pushing out stubbornly, she locked eyes with her father. 'But you said that if I pretended to have a ni…'
'Fine, you can sleep in the middle,' Rhett snapped, interrupting her. He pulled away from Scarlett, opening up enough space between them for Bonnie to lie down. Bonnie wasted no time in eagerly clambering over Scarlett, her elbow smacking her mother directly in the ribs as she dived into the gap between her parents.
Scarlett narrowed her eyes at Rhett's erratic behaviour, wondering what had gotten into him. This was the first time she'd ever heard him lose his temper with Bonnie. Until now, she'd scarcely thought him capable of it. She wondered if Bonnie had been about to say something that Rhett hadn't wanted Scarlett to hear. She'd been saying something about pretending, did that mean that her supposed nightmare had indeed been made up?
But, if that was true, why had Bonnie said that Rhett had been the one who'd told her to lie about having a bad dream? What would he stand to gain from such a farce?
Unless, Scarlett thought, her heart beating faster until it threatened to burst straight through her chest, he'd wanted Bonnie to pretend to have a nightmare so that he'd have an excuse to bring Scarlett back into his bed.
It seemed so unlikely, but perhaps she wasn't the only one who'd enjoyed them sleeping together last night. Perhaps she wasn't the only one who hadn't wanted it to end there. And perhaps she wasn't the only one who had used their daughter to try and ensure that it wouldn't.
Filled with a delicious sense of anticipation, Scarlett jerked her head up to look at her husband, hoping to see his face staring back at her filled with the same emotion that she felt sure was emblazoned across hers. Her spirits fell slightly when she saw that he was staring fixedly up at the ceiling, as if suddenly captivated by the sight of their roof.
Silently, she willed him to look at her, her emerald eyes burning into his skin so determinedly that she was almost surprised when it didn't immediately start to sizzle under the heat of her gaze. But, no matter how hard she stared, he would not look at her, and gradually her sudden belief that he cared for her began to fall away. She'd been wrong to jump to conclusions. To hope that, just because she'd discovered feelings for him, he'd developed similar ones for her.
He wouldn't have gone to the trouble of tricking her into his bed only to ignore her once she arrived. It served no purpose. Unless, she thought darkly, this was just another one of his cruel games, designed to play with her emotions for his own, perverse amusement.
Dejected, Scarlett lay back down and almost laughed out loud when Rhett chose that exact moment to extinguish the light beside the bed, flooding the room with the same darkness that now filled her bruised, disappointed heart.
A long, miserable hour passed in which Bonnie drifted off to sleep and Scarlett found herself wishing that she could do the same. She marvelled at the fact that she had spent the majority of her day desiring only to get back into Rhett's bed when, now that she was finally here, she wanted nothing more than for dawn to come so that she could leave it and forget all about her silly fantasies.
Yet, while sleep had come so easily to her the previous night, now it evaded her entirely. As she tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable position, she wondered why the bed felt so much less comfortable that it had the last time she'd slept in it. Surely, it had not been this hot yesterday? The pillows had not been so hard, nor the quilt so heavy and suffocating? The traitorous part of her mind whispered that she would probably find the bed far more agreeable if only Rhett would take her in his arms like he had before.
Sighing in frustration, she could not help but turn onto her side to face him, as if the mere sight of him would somehow help her find peace. It didn't. Looking at him served only to increase her torment. It was torture to lie this close to him, to listen to the calming, rhythmic sound of his breathing, and not be able to touch him, like looking in the window of your home only to find the latch drawn and the door locked.
Scarlett tried not to blame Bonnie for coming between them. She knew that if it wasn't for her daughter she'd be sleeping in her own bed tonight, but it was hard not to feel resentful when she looked at her snuggled up tightly against Rhett's side, firmly ensconced in the very place Scarlett wished herself to be. She sighed heavily into the oppressive weight of the dark night air, flipping over to land heavily on her back.
A deep, rich chuckle filled the air, reverberating through her entire body and making her shiver despite the immense heat of the quilt. 'My dear,' Rhett drawled, 'as much as I'm enjoying the renewal of your night time presence, all your tossing is making this bed bumpier than a boat during a storm. I fear Bonnie's going to become seasick if you don't settle down.'
'I can't help it, Rhett!' Scarlett snapped, missing the intended joke and hearing only the insult. 'I hate this bed!'
Rhett's voice lost its teasing lilt, taking on a venom that far outweighed her own. 'Yes, I suppose you would, wouldn't you, my pet? How silly of me to hope it might be otherwise. Although, perhaps it is not the bed that you dislike so vehemently, but rather the person in it?'
Scarlett sighed, nothing was ever straightforward between them. Even nights like this, which seemed to promise the chance of putting their marriage back on track served only to derail it further. Forcing back the sharp words which flew instinctively to her tongue, Scarlett refused to fall back into the same pattern of insults and criticisms that had come to dictate their conversations of late. Instead she took a deep, soothing breath and said as calmly as she could, 'That's not what I meant, Rhett. I just can't get comfy in this bed.'
'No, I doubt you can,' he retorted bitterly. 'They do say that those with a guilty conscience find sleep difficult to attain.'
'Guilty?' Scarlett questioned. 'What in the world do I have to feel guilty about?'
'Oh, nothing, my dear. You are as irreproachable as ever, forgive me for daring to suggest otherwise. Perhaps it is not your conscience that keeps you awake at all, but rather your heart.'
'My heart?' she repeated dumbly, at a loss as to what he could mean.
'Yes, your heart. Does it not assault you with images of the bed that you would rather be sleeping in tonight? And the man who you would rather be sharing it with?' Rhett asked, his voice harsh and ugly.
Ashley, she thought, finally understanding his meaning. Always Ashley. It was almost as if the man himself was lying between them rather than their sleeping daughter; a silent, festering presence which prevented them from ever truly being together. It was true that there was once a time when visions of Ashley had tormented her in the dead of the night, but that was a long time ago now, back before her decision to cast Rhett out of her bedroom had shown her who it was that she really wanted. Yet, while she was no longer plagued by fantasies of him, it was clear that Rhett was as haunted by the spectre of the man as ever.
Suddenly Scarlett felt drained, her heart becoming even more tired than her body as she realised that they'd been going round in circles for years, almost with in touching distance of happiness but never quite getting close enough to grasp it. Scarlett knew that in order to stop it from slipping through their fingers once again, it was first necessary to if consign Ashley firmly to the past. Gathering her courage, she readied herself to try.
'Rhett,' she whispered gently, but with an underlying determination. 'It's not Ashley who's keeping me awake. In fact, I haven't thought about him in months. You simply must believe me when I say that I have no desire to be in anyone's bed but yours.'
A long, heavy silence followed in the wake of her speech before Rhett murmured hesitantly, 'Not even your own?'
'No,' she stated decisively. 'It's been cold since the day that you left it.'
'But you said you didn't like it here,' Rhett persisted, his tone cautious.
'I said that your bed was uncomfortable, not that I didn't want to be in it. I'm boiling hot under this damn quilt and these pillows feel like they've been stuffed with bricks not feathers!' she huffed, kicking the quilt up angrily with her feet.
Rhett laughed at her tantrum, truly laughed in the reckless, exuberant way that he'd used to whenever she did something that amused him, and Scarlett felt the darkness retreat at the sound of his sudden joy.
'My pet,' he grinned, all former anger gone as if swept away by a sudden wind. 'You should have told me earlier, for I have the perfect remedy. While my pillows may be hard, I think that you will find that my chest is as comfortable a resting place as it ever was.'
Scarlett tensed at his scandalous words, her face burning so brightly she was surprised he couldn't see it, lit up in the darkness like a candle. Her stomach felt as if it had been reduced to a bubbling, liquid mass; a sensation that was both exciting and excruciating in it's intensity.
'What's the matter, my pet?' Rhett asked when she didn't respond, unable to keep the teasing laughter out of his voice. 'You haven't got shy on me, have you?'
Damn that skunk! Scarlett cursed. It was just like him to taunt her like this. And yet stronger than her anger, there rose up another familiar feeling: the need to better him, to rise to the test and prove that he could not beat her. Fuelled by this competitive streak that ran deeper than her embarrassment, Scarlett pulled back the covers and climbed out of the bed, luxuriating in the feel of the cold night breeze as it swirled round her ankles. Quickly, she made her way across the floor towards where Rhett lay.
He was holding the quilt up in one hand, angling it away from his body in a silent invitation for her to crawl in next to him. Scarlett could just make out the soft down of his chest hair, and agreed that it did indeed look like the perfect place to lay her weary head. She fully intended climb in beside him when a sudden pang of fear stopped her in her tracks, dousing her fire with a cold splash of reality.
Surely this was too easy. Too sudden. After months of silence and years of tension, could all their problems really be solved in a single night? What if Rhett didn't really want her, what if his words were yet another part of his plan, one of his nasty jokes meant to trip her up and make her look a fool? But he did not look as if he was joking. Even in the low light of the bedroom Scarlett could detect the fire in his eyes, the small spark of hope and desire which illuminated his face.
Yet, still she could not bring herself to move. She knew that in lying next to him she would be exposing her feelings openly for the very first time, leaving herself vulnerable to his ridicule and rejection, neither of which she felt strong enough to face. With every passing second that she stood before him the decision whether to surrender or run got harder, took on more significance, until after five minutes of perfect silence she knew that her choice would come to determine the path their entire marriage took from this point onwards.
Finally, Rhett broke the standoff. 'What's the matter, honey?' he asked softly, his words a perfect echo of the ones he'd used a lifetime ago, on another definitive day in their relationship. Scarlett realised they were also the ones that she had spoken to Bonnie this time last night, when her daughter had stood before her bed in a similar state of distress. The only difference being that the cause of Scarlett's anxiety lay in reality rather than dreams, and was therefore far harder to chase away.
'Rhett… I …' she stuttered, feeling uncharacteristically helpless and hating every second of it.
Thankfully Rhett took control as he always did when she needed him most, staking his flag firmly to the mast and helping to make her decision an easy one. 'Come here, love,' he crooned softly, his free hand reaching out to capture hers in a strong, reassuring grip. Wordlessly, he pulled her towards him and she sunk gratefully on to the bed.
She lay down by his side and moved her head so that it rested on his broad chest, directly over his heart. The sound of its rhythmic drumming filled her ear and helped wash away the stress inflicted by the night's numerous ordeals. Each beat was the same as the last, a silent promise from him to her that while everything else around her might change, he alone would remain constant. Instinctively, she curled her body around his, moulding her supple form to his harder frame. Her feet caught in the bottom of his trouser leg and slid into the small gap between rough fabric and the warm smoothness of his skin. She draped her arm possessively across his stomach, her fingers clutching in his side as she was swept up by a sudden desire to get as close to him as possible.
She tilted her head upwards, away from the centre of his chest, her nose skimming along the exposed skin of his throat, up along the rough stubble of his neck, and towards the strong outline of his jaw. She stopped in her ascent once she felt the lobe of his ear press against her forehead and, turning, she buried her face into the safety of his neck just as she'd always loved to do in the days before she had mistakenly thought that she could live without him.
Breathing in his comforting scent of cigars, whiskey and horses, she felt as if she had arrived home after a long and largely unpleasant journey. She sighed contentedly against Rhett's skin, feeling him shiver slightly underneath her as she did so. The movement, though small, set sparks of desire rushing through her, and suddenly lying next to him was no longer enough. She wanted more. She wanted it to be exactly how it had been between them, back in the days of their honeymoon when it felt like they were the only two people in existence, the only two people on earth who were truly, painfully, exhilaratingly alive.
She remembered how, back then, his eyes used to follow her everywhere, watching her every movement as if she was the only thing in the entire world that ever had or ever would matter to him. She loved her daughter, truly she did, and she was determined to be a better mother, not just to Bonnie, but to Wade and Ella, as well. The sort of mother that Ellen had been and that Melanie was. The sort of mother Scarlett thought she could possibly be, given enough time and patience. But she'd start tomorrow. After all, tomorrow was another day, and in it she could do anything that she set her mind to. But tonight belonged to her and Rhett, and she was determined that it would be one time when she did not have to compete with her daughter for his affections. One time when he would be hers and hers alone.
With new resolve, she leant up on her elbow so that her face was in line with Rhett's. She put on her most seductive face. It was not the face of the young belle that she had once been, filled with false sweetness and the coy looks that had been so rigorously drummed into her by Ellen and Mammy. Instead it was the face of the woman that she had become, a woman who had seen many sins and committed countless more, who had wasted most of her life doting upon a hopeless dream, but who had finally woken up and realised what, and more importantly whom, it was that she truly wanted.
'Rhett,' she murmured teasingly, a small smile playing out across her lips. A smile which grew in size when she saw the effect her display was having on Rhett. 'I know I said I preferred your bed to mine, but there is one way in which mine is better.'
'Just one?' he asked, a Cheshire cat grin breaking out as his black eyes danced playfully in their sockets.
Scarlett nodded, biting her lip to stop herself from purring as he began to stroke her bare arm with the tips of his fingers.
'And what way would that be, my pet?' he whispered, his hand moving higher to caress the tender skin of her neck.
'It's empty.'
Some considerable time later, caught up in a heavenly tangle of sheets and limbs in a bed he never thought he'd lie in again, Rhett Butler smiled to himself as he felt his wife's flushed and spent body melt into his own. He bathed in the delicious sensation of her soft breaths lapping against the side of his neck as she drifted off to sleep, the gentle puffs of air feeling like the softest, most intimate, of caresses. Safe in the knowledge that she wouldn't notice, he allowed the arm that was holding her tightly to his side to rise up and pull her jet black locks away from her face and across his throat. The familiar, much-missed scent of lemon verbena floated up towards him as the long, silken strands tickled his neck in the way that he had always loved. Surrounded by her like this, Rhett felt the last remnants of the pain and bitterness which had consumed him these past few years fade away, allowing his love for her to shine through fully once again.
As he held her in his arms, breathing in her scent and listening to the beating of her heart, he could not quite believe the dramatic turnaround that his life had taken in the last thirty-six hours. The man who had been filled with such anger and resentment, who could barely stand to look at his wife and who believed her to be madly in love with Ashley Wilkes felt like a stranger to him now, a figment of a bad dream, easily banished by the first golden rays of dawn.
For he knew now that she loved him, and his heart and soul rejoiced in the fact. If the heated, sinful look she had given him in his bedroom hours before had not alerted him to her true feelings, then her later giggling confession about how she had plotted to get herself back into his bed certainly had. Scarlett had seemed amazed by the fact they had both tried to use their daughter to achieve the same end, but he had not been surprised in the slightest. They had always been extraordinarily similar creatures, both shrewd and selfish and willing to do anything to get what they wanted. He'd always seen their likeness, even when she'd been wilfully blind to it. It had been one of the many crosses he'd had to bear.
No, their almost identical plots hadn't been the thing that had astonished him, but rather the fact that she had wanted to get back into his bed in the first place. When she had banished him from her bed, he had been sure that their marriage was as good as finished. Though he had never been able to win her mind or heart, the two things he most desperately wanted, he had at least been able to console himself with the notion that he did hold some sway over her body. But when she had decided that she did not even want him in this respect, he had felt that his endless struggle to make her love him had failed once and for all. That there was no longer any tangible hope of Scarlett reciprocating the feelings that had so consumed him since the day he had first caught sight of her across a crowded lawn.
But tonight had changed all of that, reviving a heart that he'd feared would never beat again. Though she had always been swayed by his ministrations, never before had she initiated anything intimate between them. Indeed, whenever he had done so, she had always been oddly nervous and passive, a woman poles apart from the bold, fearless figure she cut in the daylight hours. But tonight she had finally overcome her reservations, baring herself completely to him body and soul and meeting his every advance with a passion which more than matched his own burning need for her.
He shuddered as he recalled how at the moment of her release she had opened her startling green eyes which had bewitched him from the very first and, staring straight into his soul, had moaned his name as if it was the answer to every question that life had ever asked of her. The moment had shaken him to his very core, the look in her eyes combined with the reverent tone in which she uttered his name had revealed her love for him more strongly and earnestly than those three little words ever could.
The intensity of that instant had triggered his own release, and he had climaxed with her name on his lips, knowing that in doing so he was exposing his own love to her, but, for once, being far too caught up in the moment to care about the consequences. That two word exchange was like a renewal of their wedding vows for the two of them, wiping away old hurts and issuing in a fresh start, free from the shadows of the past.
Staring down at Scarlett's sleeping form, Rhett felt that he had finally found the place that he had been searching for ever since the day his father had forced him from his childhood home. For years after he had thought that the key to filling the hole inside of himself lay in adventure: at the helm of a ship, down the shaft of a gold mine, amongst the streets and cities of Europe. But it had always eluded him, and, eventually, disillusioned and alone, he had stopped searching and found what meagre solace he could in the bottom of a glass and the warm beds of numberless, nameless women.
Then, one day, in the most unpromising of places, he had looked up and found the answer to his decade long search at the bottom of a pair of scorching emerald eyes. He had known in that moment that it was not an adventure that he had been searching for all this time, but rather a home. A home shared with a person every bit as passionate, strong and alive as himself. Until that moment he had thought that he would always be an outsider, that his differences from society would keep him forever on the side lines, but when he looked into her eyes and saw his own rebellious nature staring straight back at him, he knew he need be alone no more.
Of course, this being Scarlett, it hadn't been that simple. While he had known instantly that they belonged together, could only ever truly be happy with each other, she had clung obstinately to her childhood fantasy of being a great lady, rejecting his ungentlemanly pursuit in favour of that golden-haired epitome of Old Southern aristocracy: Ashley Wilkes. There had been many a time since then when he'd come close to giving up on her, to cutting his losses and fleeing to some far-flung land where no one knew her name. But, though he had tried to leave her numerous times, he had never quite been able to manage it.
No matter how far he ran or how much he tried to forget her, she called to him always, like a siren singing him to the shore. And he had always followed the sound, knowing full well that he would be dashed against the rocks of her indifference once again, but unable to suppress the vain hope that this would be the time when he finally made it into harbour, safe and sound, to be welcomed by her loving embrace.
When she had banned him from her bed he had almost broken down in despair, feeling as he did that this was the final death knell in their already tempestuous marriage. In choosing Ashley over him, Rhett had thought that Scarlett had finally made her choice and that she would never now be his. If it hadn't been for the children he would have left the house that day and never returned. But they needed him, and he could not abandon them, tempted though he undoubtedly was. Instead he'd consigned himself to a life lived next to, but never with, the woman he loved. The woman who many years ago had seemed to promise him everything he'd been looking for and instead had served only to strip everything from him.
Scarlett sighed in her sleep and nuzzled further into his neck, the feel of her warm, willing body filling Rhett with a sense of completeness he had never known. Loneliness and disappointed dreams had been his only bedfellows for so long that he could not quite believe that she was actually lying beside him, needing him every bit as much as he needed her for the very first time. His heart clenched at the thought that only last night he had thought Scarlett dead, had felt his life crashing around him and been utterly powerless to stop it.
Now as she lay in his arms, her hand splayed possessively across his stomach as if she feared he would try and get away from her while she slept. Rhett realised it was not just his wife who had come back from the dead last night, but also their marriage, their future and, most importantly, their love. It would not be easy he knew, life with Scarlett rarely was, but this small window into the happiness he could have with her was enough to make him willing to take up the fight once more. Now that she seemed to have come to her senses regarding Ashley, maybe she'd finally realise that he was the one for her, the only one who truly understood her and loved her not in spite of her many flaws, but because of them. Loved her because he too possessed those very same flaws.
It had been a long, weary road that he had travelled since the day he had been banished from his father's home and family, but now, Rhett mused as he hugged his wife close and thought of the three children sleeping peacefully in their beds down the hall, now, he had finally found his own.
As the first rays of dawn broke through the clouds and set the sky ablaze, Rhett smiled at the thought that the long, dark night that their marriage had been struggling under for so long had finally lifted, and that tomorrow had arrived, at last.