In the six days that Scarlett had woken up and found herself in the Butler household, she had begun her road to recovery in earnest, healing and regaining her strength and vitality at a remarkable pace which earning the nodding approval of and gracing even Catherine's drawn and worried face with a relief so great that the poor woman, pleased and grateful and bursting with new hope, went about the house with a light step and a youthful smile on her lips making her appear almost ten years younger to the eye.

While it could not have been more than welcome news for , who rejoiced over his young patient's earnest efforts at regaining the roses in her cheeks and the luster in her long black tresses, it was the younger Master of the house who had been the most delighted of all with Scarlett's brisk and meteoric progress, and never squandering an opportunity to be of service to her, Raydon hung about the door of her room night and day, fetching and carrying things for the doctor, hounding the servants during meal times to ensure that the young woman finished her trays and keeping a watchful eye on Rose, dragging the little child away when he felt that her constant babbling as she played by Scarlett's bedside, was becoming tiresome for the convalescing patient. Caught in a whirlwind of such activities in the great house, that centered upon her solely, Scarlett was feeling pampered and coddled and made much of —all of which agreed with her entirely.

With wholesome food, plentiful rest and such sustained attention showered upon her incessantly, by a family that hastened to please her, Scarlett thrived and blossomed under their constant care, losing her pale and wan look to a healthy complexion infused with the zest and vigor that came naturally to the young and the strong. For Scarlett was both young and strong. To the outward eye of the Butler servants and its masters, she appeared to be in her early years, maybe all of seventeen years of age. To Catherine's caring maternal ones, she seemed but merely a child and a spirited and lively one at that– and who Catherine endeavored to treat as such, smothering Scarlett with excessive attention and doting on her with a motherly love that claimed to make no difference or distinction between her and her Little Rose.

Thus, began Scarlett, hesitant and uncertain at first but gradually easing into a comfortable sense of well-being and good cheer as she set off on her path to recovery and finding rather to her astonishment, that she was also on an unbidden journey of slow discovery. For, with every knock on her door and with every scrape of the chair that was pulled closer to her bedside, the strangeness of the new world and its unfamiliar faces, soon lost their novelty as the members of the Butler house revealed themselves to her one by one, there being no dearth of visitors to call upon her, once she was well enough to receive them.

From the grim faced, austere head of the house to its gracious and sweet and gentle mannered lady, the handsome younger son with his attractive smile and playful teasing to the lively and loquacious littlest member of the party who could never sit still or finish a sentence, jumping randomly from one question to the other or skipping through half-finished thoughts to the mild mannered and youthful doctor who fussed about her twice a day, studiously peering through his thick glasses, into his vials and copper colored bottles or the vast bustling army of house servants and maids led by Old Thomas, stately and dignified –Scarlett came to know them all and know them well- and slowly yes but surely as time rolled by. All but with the glaring exception of one.

Rhett Butler's appearance at the Butler mansion at the crack of dawn, hardly a day after the dreadful accident and discovery of the mysterious young lady, dressed in clothes that seemed strangely familiar in style but a trifle too modern for the prudish times of 1850, was a secret whispered only by the towering dark cedars that arched their massive arms across the Butler's walkway and the news of his arrival kept clandestine and witnessed only by the concrete stucco of the time worn massive walls which guarded the Butler house. There was only one other matter, as well guarded as Rhett's arrival that morning and that was the discovery of the young woman the previous day. That and her unfortunate accident under certain regrettable circumstances which had obliged her to take up residence at the Butler house, were matters which were privy to none but to the most intimate of family and closest of servants that belonged to the Butler name.

Not one among the many of Rufus's wealthy friends or estimable foes likewise, were aware of how or when, Raydon, bloodied and broken in spirit, had carried the body of the unconscious girl, unwittingly taking his first staggering step toward a journey that was to challenge a reality that was yet to be. No stiff-necked aristocrat or friendly neighbor observed him as he placed his foot on the winding path that led to a home, which from that moment onward, would cease to harbor a common destiny for those who sheltered under it. Nor did any of the hunting or drinking companions of Charleston's elite or Rufus's lowly renters nor its poor white folks hear or know of Rhett's breakneck ride back home on a tireless steed that raced darkly into the night, its hooves pounding southward as both its luckless rider and itself, turned their powerful backs on a forlorn farewell, whispered softly in colors of majestic black and gold and weaved within the silently swaying banners of West Point. No prying eyes of low born slave or wealthy master breached the solitude of his lonely passage at the crack of dawn. Nor did the most sleepless stir or restive among his hometown awaken, when Rhett, casually tossing the reins of his wild black stallion to the waiting stable boy, climbed the steep steps of his childhood home bathed in the crimson glow of a new day, with careless abandon and a reckless swagger, his eyes dark with ruthless purpose and a deadly air about him. Not the farmhands or Ben, the milkman, nor even the ducks and geese waddling around the lush grassy stretches along the front of the house, scourging for grain and feed in the morning light paid any heed as he knocked on the huge wooden doors of his father with its massive inlaid crest, every knock sounding like a mocking slap on its polished surface.

A well-guarded secret it was, all of it, until the moment Rhett arrived home

Within a few hours of his stepping foot into the wide arched parlor, brimming with opulence in its spreading sofas and richly embroidered cushions, a crumpled sheet of expensive stationery, embossed and monogrammed in dark black ink with a bold "R" and containing lettering in a fine hand, angrily crammed into the front pocket of his coat, like the turning of the wheels of a well-oiled machine, the news of the fateful accident and the arrival of the Butler's unexpected lady guest along with Rhett's home coming began making its rounds among the unsuspecting town folk.

Revealed discreetly at first, in quiet mutterings and subtle murmurs and circulated initially among the curious busybodies of the serene coastal city by none other than the trusted and hired hands and loyal henchmen, bearing the Butler insignia, it was done with such deliberate care and with admirable precision, timed to a minute degree of accuracy and managed so adroitly and executed with such smoothness that the unsuspecting townsfolk never realized what hit them for it was all carried out and supervised personally by the expert hand and under the guiding eye of Rhett Butler himself.

Dr Peters, one among the devoted household, was the first to break the news "accidentally" as he conducted his morning visits of Old lady Bufford the town gossip, and it was not long before the susceptible and straight laced Charlestonian society, unwary to guile and artifice came to be caught in the feverish grasp of a gossip that set it aflame with scandal. The whispered conjectures and wild speculations that burned through the aristocratic circles of Rufus's wealthy landlord friends and their common servant folk alike, kindled in its wake the searing question that had been planted in every mind, black and white – Who was this young lady that Rufus's oldest with his usual impetuous negligence had gotten nearly killed and what was her connection to him?

And this question, by large remained unanswered to the exasperation and annoyance of many, try though they may with discreet enquiries and broad hints that were directed at Rufus or his minions for the truth of the matter was that, Rufus himself had more questions than he cared for than answers –and knew only the response to one question, in part.

When Rhett had crossed the threshold of the Butler mansion, it had been not at the express desire of his father or even in consideration of the desolate pleas of his mother who had begged him, on the contrary, not to come but because upon receiving the hastily written letter, personally delivered to him by his father's own overseer who had ridden through a sleepless night with strict orders to dismount only at West Point, he had been reminded of the one duty that he had been compelled to renounce when he had left his father's home—that of a brother.

Rufus's letter had been explicit enough, detailing the events of the carriage incident with a startling finality and ending in grim speculation that spelt a fatal outcome for the hapless young woman, her injuries being grievous and her health failing by the day. Rhett's father had, in not so many words, asked for his help, the old man being set in his ways, a proud and obstinate patriarch with an arrogance that was only surmounted by his stubbornness but it had been clear to Rhett, from the guarded allusions his father had etched out in a shaking hand, in the only letter that he had received from the old sire in all his time away, pointed to a perilous future for Raydon with the Butler family already reeling under the looming threat of an impending legal inquiry if matters were set to further deteriorate.

It helped that it was common knowledge among the proud and pompous of elitist Charleston, that Rhett's reputation was blemished by his numerous transgressions and damaged beyond repair and the addition of yet another indiscretion- an illicit affair or an incidental accident or even the subsequent death of a hapless victim added to its burgeoning notoriety, could not possibly suffer it more.

Of course, what helped even more was Rhett's infinite and underhanded connections, his rumored knowledge of illegal means and dubious methods, his dangerous links with men whose names remained nameless among the law abiding and his hot headed trysts even as a mere youth with danger and peril and risk taking, which in addition to his lethal skills with his six shooter and an intelligence that was sharper than the blade he wielded, had as all of Charleston well knew, reckoned the youth into a man before his time- a formidable and dangerous man of unparalleled ingenuity and possessing an unrivalled talent for getting himself out of trouble.

Raydon, however, gentle of birth and mild-mannered and honorable, incapable of uttering an untruth and susceptible to morals, affected by his virtuousness, would on the other hand, find his fine head inevitably at the other end of a rope.

And so, for the first time in all his sixty-two proud and haughty years, Rufus Butler, the authoritative patriarch and presiding head of the Butler clan, relinquished his ego and his pride and called for his prodigal son.

And the prodigal son heard and he came —but as always, Rhett came with a plan.