She waited.
For the past few nights, she would lie down at night but she refused to sleep. She had learned from that mistake days before. When she closed her eyes, knowing that her husband was not home, her mind was instantly bombarded with blasphemous images. Flashes of his hands on skin. Pulling and pressing, stroking and molding. His lips…everywhere. She could hear him. Oh, God help her! She could hear his harsh staccato breathing; it was almost tangible on her skin. She could hear the shameful yet glorious words he had groaned into her ear as he moved with her…
Then he would lean over her to kiss her—but his lips would crash violently into a stranger's mouth. And then she would realize that it was a stranger's body. Someone else was hearing those words. Someone else was reaching for him. And he was reaching back…
She would wake up then, sobbing. A reaction, she had reasoned within herself, which was instinctual. She did have a history with nightmares, after all.
She refused to acknowledge the things plaguing her mind with regard to her husband. She had convinced herself that she could easily forget that night. That she could forget him. But she would only become more frustrated when she didn't—couldn't—forget.
In the light of day, it was easy to hide from her troubling thoughts. She would go to the mills, and work until she could find nothing else to do. Then she would go to the store, and organize and reorganize and move boxes and look over the books until there was no light left in the sky.
Yet at night, in the darkness of her room, her thoughts and feelings were illuminated. Not breaching the barrier she had placed upon herself when she was in the confines of her room—her very own room, breathing shallowly and listening intently to every creak in the house—was an impossibility. In that, she couldn't abstain from listening and waiting for a sign that her husband had returned from…wherever it was that he went.
The irony of her situation was glaringly obvious, even to one such as herself. She had been more than willing to give up all rudiments of marriage just months before, yet now, she couldn't be more willing to have it all back.
She longed to talk with him again. Her body ached for him, and her mind was haunted by him. Every night it seemed to get worse, and sometimes she felt that she would explode if she couldn't at least be close to him. She remembered with shame what she had done just the night before…
She heard him. He came home much earlier than he had any other night. He entered through the front door and headed straight up the stairs on heavy feet. She listened as he inched closer to her door. His steps were so close; she could hear the carpet shifting beneath his shoes. Her breath caught and she sat up swiftly in her bed when she heard him pause, just feet away from her door. He opened the door to his bedroom a moment later, and Scarlett's heart sank to the pits of her stomach.
Before she could lie down again, she heard a crash. Her heart jumped at the sudden noise. She knew that it had come from Rhett's room and she wondered if he had fallen or hurt himself, or…Another muffled crash prompted Scarlett to jump up from her bed. Without conscious thought, she started to inch closer to the doorway. About halfway to the door, she heard another crash. And another when she reached the door. She opened the door slowly, careful not to make a sound. She opened it just enough to see out into the hallway. She saw a small stream of light coming from his door and realized it was slightly ajar. Standing there in her doorway, she waited for the next crash. It never came. She could hear him from all the way down the hall, breathing harshly. Heavily. It made her skin flush with memories…
Her breathing unconsciously adjusted to match his until she was breathing in time with him. She quietly stepped outside of her room and inched towards his door. The semi-opened door gave Scarlett just enough of a view to be able to see him. He was sitting on the bed, shattered glass all around him. He held his head in his hands as his fingers viciously clawed at his scalp. She suddenly couldn't seem to think rationally. And with the sound of his breathing in her ear, she found herself desperate for her hands to be raking through his hair. Her insubordinate mind imagined closing the space between them, grabbing him and forcing his heated breath on her skin again. Her knees went weak at the possibility.
He suddenly looked up at the door, and for the briefest moment she feared that he had noticed her presence. When he showed no sign of seeing her, she realized that because of the angle of the door he could not. She was sure by now that if he had seen her he would be laughing at her.
That was when her reason had returned to her. Of course he would laugh at her! He would see her…spying on him in his room! The room that he had chosen when he had left her! She quickly withdrew from her place by his door, hot and angry tears on her cheeks.
As soon as she entered her room, softly closing the door behind her, she walked to her bed and slammed her fists into the mattress. She gripped the quilt painfully as she vowed to herself she would forget him. Tonight…well, people often do unusual things at night, she reasoned within herself. Why, she remembered when she had been a child that she had awakened in the middle of the night once and had imagined that one of her bed posts was a ghost. How ridiculous! This was the exact same concept…nighttime and darkness do strange things to an individual's mind at times.
She felt nothing for him. And she would forget him…
"If it is the last thing I ever do on God's green earth…" she brutally whispered to herself. She would forget about him. She would forget by remembering.
He left. He didn't want her.
And she…couldn't summon an explanation, even within herself, for why this made her sob more relentlessly.
What a fool!, she thought to herself, remembering her reaction. What had been wrong with her anyway? Why couldn't she stop thinking about him? She turned quickly on her side, her body begging her to sleep as she begged it to stay awake.
In the end, she fell into another restless sleep and dreamed of waiting at Rhett's door for him to come home.
Scarlett awoke the next morning and continued her ritual that she had established over the past week. She would call Mammy upstairs to help her ready for the day. She would take her breakfast in her room and as soon as she was able, she sprinted down the stairs and out of the house, assuring that she would have no…encounters.
Ashley's mill was always her first stop, because there was always more to do there. It was easy to spend hours there, just checking over the books and things. For the first few days, she was content to be near Ashley. She felt a sense of peace in her heart in just being close to him. He was something of a comfort and security; something she couldn't recall anyone else ever being in her life.
He didn't say much. When he did speak, to ask or answer a question, it always led to some recollection of the past. She would always try to discourage him from these discussions and had ignored his comments altogether on several occasions. It produced an odd sense of guilt in that she felt guilty for her method of dissuasion, and yet didn't feel shame in her need for deterring him.
Though loyalty and love for him burned strongly inside of her, she was finding that, as the days went on and she continued to spend more time at his mill, she was becoming…irritated.
Oh, how awful for her to think such things about Ashley! How could she be irritated with him? But she was. And she realized that the irritation was growing the more she was around him.
It wasn't colossal and overbearing behavior that was aggravating her, either. It was small, miniscule things that were starting to get under her skin. She would say something that she had found to be funny, and he wouldn't laugh. She would ask him a question or mention something to him and he would seem to completely misunderstand what she was saying. She would tease about something or tell a joke, all in good fun, and he would take her seriously. Sometimes he would even gently admonish her for her words. Her irritation was unnerving, because she had never felt anything for Ashley but a reverent and abounding love.
She squelched the irritation, and continually reminded herself of his love. Of the reasons why she loved him. Her mind instantly went to the first day that she had seen him again at the tender age of fourteen, and she would savor the memory. But it did little to help her with her frustration. It had been almost a week, and she had to reluctantly admit something that she had never thought would be a possibility. She knew that if she continued to linger at his mill as she had been, it would be all too easy to lose her patience with him.
That was why she left his mill early. She stopped by Gallegher's mill and the store. But things were organized and running smoothly. Spending the past week doing nothing but working had gotten her so ahead that even she couldn't find anything to do.
She decided to go over the inventory of the store for the second time that week when she saw there was nothing to do. However, she soon realized that sitting was the last thing she needed to be doing. Her lack of sleep for the past few nights was catching up with her. Every time she blinked, it was a struggle to open her eyes again. On several occasions, they didn't open and she would suddenly jerk awake, wondering if she had been asleep for an hour or for just a moment. But she continued her work, refusing to go home and rest.
The office had become dimmer as the day went on, making it even more difficult to stay awake. She rested her weary head in her hands and the last thing that she remembered was looking at the records for striped muslin…
Then suddenly she was jerked awake.
"Scarlett! By God, I'm going to…get up!" She looked towards his face, but couldn't see him in the dark.
"Rhett?" Her voice cracked with sleep.
"You little idiot!" His voice was edged with barely contained fury. "What the hell were you thinking?" He was pulling her up by her arms and it hurt. Her arm was tingling from the awkward position that she had fallen asleep in and it made it hard to move.
"I walk into that gargantuan castle that you call a house tonight and everyone is in a panic! No one knew where the hell you were! Damn it, Scarlett! The children were in tears! Mammy couldn't get them to sleep, they were so worried!" Things were starting to come into perspective as he spoke, and she realized that she was still at the store. What was he going on about?
"Not that you would care, would you? You have never given a damn about those children!"
Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could barely see his silhouette in the dim light of the moon coming from the windows. "What are you going on about?" she asked in confusion.
Rhett's eyes flared at her words and he whispered several vulgarities that weren't appropriate for a lady. He stiffly laughed before answering, "You, my darling little vixen, are completely oblivious, as is always to be expected. It is currently almost two o'clock in the morning. You are officially, what would be politely called, a 'woman of the night'." His voice was losing its edge and was being replaced by his normal menacing sarcasm.
"Two o'clock?!" She was suddenly wide awake when he mentioned the time. He laughed at her harshly, and without a word grabbed her from behind the knees, slung her into his arms, and headed for the door. He was holding her to himself tightly, as if she might try to get away. On the contrary, she grabbed for his neck in surprise, breathless.
"I can walk by myself, you cad!" She said, finally processing all of his hateful words from just moments before.
"Ha!" he said, "I suppose that reading a clock is a much more difficult task, yet you seem to be too ignorant to do even that. No, my dear, I am in doubt of all of your abilities at the moment."
She should have been angry at his words as she had been a moment before, but any comprehensive thought had left her head once her senses had caught up with her surroundings. She was in Rhett's arms and she could feel every part of his torso against her side. She could feel his breathing and even adjusted her face so that she could feel it whisper across her cheek. His fingers were digging into her thigh and her ribs, making her treacherous mind scold her for wearing a corset. She suppressed the urge to bury her body deep into his, to nuzzle his neck with her nose as she deeply breathed in his unmistakable scent.
When they reached her carriage, he tossed her in unceremoniously. Her temper spiked again and she quickly folded her arms across her chest. How could she feel such things for such a repulsive rogue?
When he climbed into the carriage from the other side, she stated. "I am perfectly capable of taking myself home, thank you."
"As has already been afore mentioned, my pet, the affirmation of your capabilities is, under the circumstances, completely unsatisfying." With a snap of the reins the carriage started to move.
She tightened her crossed arms over her chest. A part of her wanted to be mad at him. After all, he was a cad of the worst kind. But another part of her could only concentrate on the fact that his shoulder was touching hers…
Pork was waiting for them when they reached the house. Rhett handed over the horse and carriage to him as he climbed down. Scarlett helped herself out of the carriage. Once she was dismounted she turned to find Rhett standing beside her and before she could comprehend anything else, she was in his arms again.
She wanted to protest. She wanted to yell at him and say mean and hateful things to him to get him back for everything he had said at the store. She wanted to make him think that she didn't want his hands on her. That she hated the thought of him touching her. She wanted to yell at him to put her down.
…but she was afraid he would listen.
So she said nothing and they traveled through the foyer and up the stairs in silence. However, when she realized that Rhett was carrying her in the nursery, she questioned him.
"Where are we going?"
"My dear, I promised your children that I would bring you back from whence you came. I cannot let them believe that I am not a man of my word." Rhett dropped her to her feet at the foot of Wade's bed.
"They are asleep!" she whispered. "I am not going to wake them up over something this ridiculous." She turned from him to leave the room.
"A good mother would…" his tone was coated with cynicism.
She turned around, in a rage. "I am a good mother! I have never done anything but provide for and take care of them!" She fed them and clothed them and she had birthed them! Who could expect more from a mother?!
"I never said you weren't anything but the epitome of motherhood, my dear!" he said with mock alarm.
"We both know what you were trying to say! You have always tried to say that-"
Rhett's laughter cut her off. "Scarlett, a cat could do the things you just mentioned. You, my dear, are a mother. But you are not a good mother. A good mother does more than provide and give care. She takes them places and does things with them…and informs them that she is safe after she had decided to do something foolish."
She stood in the doorway of the nursery and realized she was now faced with a dilemma. If she did go to wake the children up, Rhett would think that she was doing it because he had said she should and he would smirk at her in that vulgar way. But if she didn't do it, he would forever hold it over her head that she wasn't a good mother to her children. She decided that one moment of his hateful grin would be better than a lifetime of mockery and stomped over to the side of Wade's bed.
She summoned the sweetest voice possible, "Wade, darling." She gently shook him. She reached over next to Ella's bed and gently shook her too. "Ella, dear." They both awoke slowly, and upon seeing her sat straight up in bed. Ella jumped at her and hugged her and Scarlett tried not to be annoyed by the fact that she pulled her hair in the process. Wade just sat in bed.
"I just wanted to let you both know that I am alright. Mother fell asleep at her store. But she is home now." Scarlett patted Ella on the back awkwardly as she stroked the coverlet that lay atop Wade's knee.
Scarlett glanced behind her at Rhett, who was standing to the side with his arms crossed. She couldn't see his face but she was sure that he was intently watching and listening.
"I know you were both worried, so tomorrow Mother is going to do something special for you both! Won't that be nice?" Both of their faces lit up, and they eagerly whispered, "Yes, Mother!"
"But you must go to bed now." They both nodded. Ella climbed into bed and Wade settled down again. Still aware of Rhett's eyes on her, she leaned over both of them and kissed their foreheads. She turned away from them and headed for the door, triumph clearly written on her face. She stopped when she heard someone quietly clear their throat. She turned slowly towards Rhett.
"What?" she questioned causally.
He walked over to her and grabbed her by the arm, causing her heart to jump. "I believe you forgot someone…" He led her to the crib on the other side of the room.
She glared at him before bending over the cradle and kissing her daughter's cheek. She glared at him once more before she headed to her own room.
"Good night, Scarlett." His voice was full of amusement. She fumed at his tone.
She was a good mother, damn it!