AN: So, one consequence of making Peter the auto camp owner? Having to decide whether I should inject ugly realism, or pretend it didn't exist. I didn't really like either option, but I hope what I did works.

The line Rhett quotes is Charlotte Bronte, from Jane Eyre.

Thanks for reviewing!

Chapter 13

[Previously on Night Bise: Scarlett is… trying to get Rhett to call her a spoiled brat? I wonder how that's going.]

You think this whole business is silly, don't you? I mean, running away and everything.

"No, no. It's too good a story." Rhett quickly assured her. This was both true and untrue. It would be a terrific story, but that didn't quite mean it wasn't a silly business, to boot. Silly business often made for the very best of stories.

"Yes, you do," the flower insisted. She hesitated, as if pondering the implications of true brattiness. "Well… perhaps I am, although I don't see how I can be! People who are spoiled are accustomed to having their own way. I never have." (This statement was not entirely accurate. She had gotten away with almost everything before her mother died, and Gerald still spoiled her in ways that Scarlett had never realized were indulgent. But if she had realized them, she would have decided that they didn't really count and Rhett didn't really need to know. And as it happened, she didn't realize them, so her words were spoken with a veneer of truth.)

"On the contrary, I've always been told what to do and how to do it and where and with whom. Would you believe it? This is the first time I've ever been alone with a man!"

"Oh yeah?" he asked, careful to sound just interested enough for her to continue without making her self-conscious about it.

"It's a wonder I'm not panic-stricken," she confided, good-naturedly.

Something about the admission charmed Rhett despite his continued skepticism as to her upbringing. "Oh, you're doing all right," he replied smoothly.

Her head swiveled up at his response. A pair of very clear, green eyes scanned his face for a moment, trying to decipher the meaning behind his words. A faint wrinkle briefly puckered her forehead. Then her face cleared, and she shrugged, turning back to her food. "I mean it, though! Nannies, governesses, chaperones. Even bodyguards!" She stopped to take a bite of egg, which indelicately did not make it all the way to her mouth. Rhett's mustache twitched as her tongue darted out to lick it off her lip. "It's been a lot of fun," she finished, fixing him with her earnest I am not a brat look.

Rhett smiled. The flower had a point, even if her definition of spoiled was conveniently myopic. "I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high."

The flower pierced him with that gaze again. "We-ell…" she said, uncertainly. The reference seemed to have been lost on her, and she was struggling to respond to the literal meaning. "Maybe something like that," she acknowledged, her eyes narrowed in distrust.

She might not be exceptionally well-read, but she was sharp enough to sense when she was being made a punchline. He quickly switched tracks. "One consolation, with all those people: you can never be lonesome."

Scarlett shrugged. "It has its moments. It got to be a sort of game to try to outwit Pa's detectives. I—I did it, once; we were staying in New York, and I made it all the way to Herald Square. I actually went shopping without a bodyguard!" The pride with which she made this pronouncement would have been utterly adorable to most men. "It was wonderful," she sighed, reflecting. "I felt positively scandalous. But it didn't last all that long. I made it to the department store, but they caught up with me when I'd only been there five minutes. I was so mad I ran out the back and jumped into the first car I saw!" She leaned forward in excitement, caught up in the thrill of her own story. "Guess who was in it?"

Rhett pretended to ponder this, stroking his moustache for a moment, before speaking.

"Santa Claus."

Scarlett rolled her eyes, but answered. "No, Ashley! Ashley Wilkes was in it."

Rhett perked up at this. Now they were getting somewhere! "I see. Is that how you met him?"

Scarlett nodded, but spoke contradictory words. "Well, sort of. We grew up together, you know. That is, he was our neighbor. But he went off to university when I was twelve, and I hadn't seen him since. And then there he was! Like something out of a fairy tale. Can you imagine? Of all the people!"

She picked up her doughnut, and set one end in her coffee. "We rode around all afternoon, just talking. Poor Pa was frantic." Her eyes clouded over briefly at this. That flicker of a shadow spoke of love and loyalty and selfishness and guilt all at once, and Rhett found himself charmed by her hypocrisy—or rather, intrigued by it, since reporters, as a rule, were not ones to be charmed by their subjects. "If the bodyguards hadn't found us when they did, I think he'd've had all the rivers dragged."

Rhett's attention was diverted here from the flower's charming-and-or-intriguing emotional range. Her poor doughnut was still sitting in coffee, and as she raised it to her mouth, its structural integrity all but collapsed. Scarlett had to take a hasty bite off the end lest it fall and plunk into her coffee.

"What ladies' academy taught you to dunk, anyway?" he chided.

"Oh, now, don't you start telling me I shouldn't dunk!" Scarlett cried, indignantly.

"Of course you shouldn't," Rhett countered. "You don't know how to do it. Dunking's an art. Don't let it soak so long. You just dip," he demonstrated with his own doughnut, "and plop, into your mouth." He chewed the bite of pastry and swallowed. "You let it soak too long, and see— it gets soft and falls off. It's all a matter of timing." He wiped his mouth with the napkin. "I ought to write a book about it."

"Thanks, professor," the flower smirked. But she followed his instruction. Chewing happily on her properly-dunked doughnut, she smiled at him.

Rhett cleared his throat. "Just goes to show you. Millions in the bank and you don't know how to dunk."

Scarlett shrugged. "I'd change places with a plumber's daughter any day."

She was saved from whatever retort Rhett might have made (something along the lines of how stunningly blind she could be as to her fortunate circumstances, focusing only on her impressively large gilded cage) by voices outside the window.

You can't go around bothering my tenants! the auto camp owner was saying.

Rhett moved silently toward the door and opened it just a crack to better hear. Eavesdroppers often heard highly entertaining and instructing things, after all.

"I'm tellin' ya, sirs, there's no girl here by that name. 'Sides, how do I know you're detectives?" Peter asked.

One of the suited men stepped forward menacingly. "Watch who you're talking to, boy. We'll look where we want."

Rhett's stomach chilled, and he closed the door quietly. Scarlett had swung around in her seat, her face pale and mouth open in horror. It was an ugly scene, but it was sure to be worse if they found her after Peter's protestations.

"Pa's detectives! Oh, Rhett, what'll I do?" she asked, her eyes screening the room as if she could conjure a secret exit.

"Don't look at me. I didn't marry Ashley Wilkes." She glared at this, before standing and collecting her meager belongings.

"The window," she whispered. "Do you think they'd see me?"

The corner of Rhett's mouth twisted down. "Oh, don't be a fool." Her face twitched as if she'd been struck, and he hadn't even meant to be harsh. "Come here," he called in a low voice, his hand out, palm up. She started toward him, and when she was within reach, he closed his hand gently around her arm and guided her to the seat she'd just vacated. "Sit down," he instructed.

Scarlett sat, and to her great surprise, Rhett knelt in front of her. His large hands sifted through her hair, which she had only just tamed back with pins. He removed several of them from her coiffure and dropped them in her lap, before running his fingers through the locks, a little backwards and sideways, disheveling them. She shivered. He looked at her earnestly, trying to communicate something, but she didn't know what. Then he undid the top three buttons on her dress. Scarlett's heart pounded as his fingers brushed against her collarbone. She felt as if she was in a play but no one had told her what her lines were. He scanned her once again, and nodded to himself, before standing and untucking his own clothes. He retrieved a comb from one pocket, and dropped it in her lap with the pins.

"Yeah, I got a letter from Aunt Eleanor. She says if we don't stop over at Baltimore she'll never forgive us," he shouted, loudly enough—he hoped—to be heard outside.

"What are you—?" Scarlett hissed, but he interrupted her, putting one finger against her lips.

"The grandbaby is due next month, and she want us to come," he was shouting again. Scarlett could still feel the burning imprint of his finger against her lips. She still felt like she was in a play, she still wasn't sure what her lines were, but she thought she'd be able to follow along. She swallowed and nodded.

"She says she saw your sister Rosey the other day, and she's looking swell," he continued.

Someone knocked at the door. Rhett ducked behind the blanket and gestured to her. Scarlett's heart beat quickly, thrillingly, and she hoped she was up to this challenge. She leant forward in her chair, letting her hair fall in a dark curtain across much of her face, and picked up the comb.

"Come in!" she called, trying to disguise her voice in an exaggerated accent.

One of the detectives stepped inside. Rhett, who had stepped behind the blanket, and was doing a remarkable job of pretending he was unaware of their existence, much less their presence, continued in the same loud voice. "I hope Rosey has a girl, don't you? She's always wanted a boy, but boys are nothing but trouble. No use to anyone, boys, no indeed. I think we'll stop over in Baltimore this trip, darling. Give the family a treat."

Scarlett was absorbing this, trying to remember names, should she need them. Still combing her hair, she saw two feet stop on the floor next to her chair. She angled her head ever so slightly toward the figure, looked at him so as not to arouse suspicion, and then looked back down. Her heart thudded in her chest again. "Rhett!" she said, brightly. "Man here to see you, sweetheart!"

"Who, me?" Rhett asked, popping his head over the blanket. "You want to see me?"

The detective hadn't taken his eyes off Scarlett. "What's your name?" His voice slithered down her back.

"You addressin' me?" Scarlett asked.

"Yeah," he slithered again. "What's your name?"

Rhett moved from behind the blanket at this. "Hey, wait a minute! You're talking to my wife! You can't walk in here and—what do you want, anyway?"

"We're looking for somebody," the detective answered.

"Well, look your head off but don't come bustin' in here. This isn't a public park." Scarlett was thankful her hair hid her smile. "I have a good mind to sock you right in the nose." Oh, he mustn't agitate them! Just go along until we can be rid of them, she thought.

The other detective and Peter had entered the cabin by now. "What's going on here?" the second detective asked, having heard the threat.

Peter looked tired. "These men are detectives, Mr.— Mr. and Mrs. Butler," he explained.

"I wouldn't care if they were the whole police department! They can't come in here and start shooting questions at my wife!" Rhett exclaimed.

"Don't get excited, Rhett. They just asked a simple question," she soothed.

Rhett turned on her, and she could just make out the bright sparkle in his eyes before he spoke again. Nastily. "How many times do I have to tell you to stop butting in when I have an argument?" Scarlett was glad she'd seen the sparkle, or she might have yelled at him. Oh, but maybe that could work to their advantage!

"Well, you don't have to lose your temper!" she said, sharply, and turned back to the table, as if hurt.

"That's what you told me the last time, too." Rhett said. "Every time I step in to protect you. At the Elks' dance, when that big Swede made a pass at you—"

"He didn't make a pass at me! I told you a million times!" Scarlett fired back, starting to enjoy herself.

"Oh no? I saw him, pawing you all over the dance floor!"

"He did no such thing! You were drunk!" Scarlett insisted.

"I was very drunk! And I intended to get drunker still, but that Swede— I'm sorry I didn't take another sock at him."

"What, and get yourself arrested again? How could you? After you promised!"

"Aw, nuts!" Rhett responded. "You're just like your old man! Once a plumber's daughter, always a plumber's daughter."

"Rhett Butler, you've gone far enough!" Scarlett stood, turning away from the detectives and making her way to her bed. She sat, carefully angled away from them, and pretended to cry. She wasn't very good at it, because she was biting her lip not to laugh at the scene they were making. The plumber's daughter remark glowed happily in her heart, as if it were an endearment. "I won't stand being insulted like this for another minute!" she shouted.

"Now look what you've done!" Rhett turned, directing this at the detectives.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Butler. But you see, we're supposed to check up on everybody," the first detective said.

"We're looking for a girl by the name of Scarlett O'Hara. You know—the daughter of that big textiles mug." Scarlett's smile slipped from her face.

"Well, I hope you find her," Rhett said, icily, indicating the door. Having dismissed them, he walked back toward her. "Aw, quit crying, honey, you know I didn't mean it."

The door closed, and faintly, a beleaguered voice outside said, "Like I said, sirs, a perfectly nice married couple."

When their footsteps no longer crunched on the gravel, Rhett and Scarlett both hurried to the window and peered out, assuring themselves that they were gone. Scarlett's back was warm where Rhett stood behind her.

His voice vibrated through her when he spoke. "It'll be a dirty trick on Rosey if it does turn out to be a girl."

Scarlett turned around, her cheeks pink from the excitement, unable to contain her mirth anymore. Laughter bubbled up her throat, and she doubled over at the thrill of escape, and what fun their silly shouting match had been! Oh, it was absurd. Rhett's rich laughter was welcome alongside her own.

"Say, you were pretty good, jumping in like that. Got a brain behind that face, haven't you?"

Scarlett thought perhaps she should be offended at his surprise, but still sparkling from the whole experience, let it roll off her and concentrated only on his compliments. "You weren't so bad yourself," she said, charitably.

"We could start a two-person stock company," Rhett said, grinning. "If things get tough, we play some small town auditoriums. We'll call this one The Great Deception."

"Next week, Pygmalion," she countered, naming the only play she could currently think of. She hoped he didn't continue this game for long.

"The Three Musketeers," Rhett said, brandishing an imaginary sword. "I'd make a great D'Artagnan," he executed an exaggerated bow to prove his point.

"Or… Cinderella?" Scarlett half-guessed. "A real nice love story?"

"No mushy stuff," Rhett cut her off, but his eyes still gleamed. "I'm running this troupe."

Scarlett, her hands on her hips, puffed up indignantly, "Oh, you are? And just who made you the manager?"

"It was my idea, wasn't it?"

"You always want to run everything," she pouted, caught up in the strange, delirious fun of arguing.

"And you, my dear, want to have your fingers in all the pies, don't you?"

They were interrupted by another knock at the door, and Scarlett wailed. "You would bring up the Swede again!" she cried, fearing the detectives had returned. But it was Peter who opened the door just a crack.

"Your bus leaves in five minutes," he reminded them.

And they had not even begun to pack!

~nb~

Cathleen watched the telegraph machine tap out its message, and walked into her boss' office with some little apprehension. "Another wire from Rhett Butler, boss."

"Throw it in the basket," Henry ordered, not looking up. Yet as she started to do so, his curiosity got the better of him. Damn Butler! "What's it say?" he asked, begrudgingly.

Cathleen cleared her throat. This was exactly what she'd hoped to avoid. "'Have I got a story! It's getting hotter and hotter. Hope you're the same.'" she read.

Henry's face was getting red, and she knew what was coming. But he wouldn't let her just throw away the wires when they came in, either. Even when she suggested it! He snatched the paper from her loose grasp—he was lucky she didn't get a papercut, she thought (Butler had that effect on people)—and tore it into little, tiny pieces.

"Collect?" he asked.

"Yes," Cathleen said. Always, Cathleen thought.

"Don't accept any more!" he shouted.

She smirked. Told you.