The red haired girl leaned forward against the back of the chair, her plump white arm snaking its way down the open front of the starched white shirt to rest on the hard planes of his chest. She curled her hand against his brown skin and gently skimmed her fingers against the light dusting of black hair, inching her way slowly towards one dark nipple. Her brightly painted nails glinting red from the reflection of the nightlights that peppered the bar room counters and a heady perfume wafted from the folds of her orange chiffon dress that was cut low enough for her stays to push up the rounded tops of her breasts.

Wrapping her other hand around his neck, she pressed herself closer to him and dipped her head lower, her lips gently nipping his ear. She inhaled deeply, savoring the sensation of the cool smoothness of his linen shirt brushing against her bare cleavage. Sighing she pressed harder, her taut nipples straining against his back when she felt him pull away suddenly.

Rhett gently disentangled himself from the curving arms and without turning around said, "That's enough Belle. Will you behave or would you rather that I leave"?

"Oh honey, you know how I get when you are around. I can't help myself now, can I? Just you take a look around now. There are about a dozen girls in this room, lurking like vultures for their turn. I bet, all I have to do is put an inch of distance between us and they will descend on you like locusts", she said bitterly, glowering at the brightly dressed girls in the room.

Rhett raised his eyes briefly from the glass of amber liquid he'd been staring into and his gaze swept around the room, falling lazily on the simpering girls hanging around the arms of the gentlemen scattered around the bar counters. Meeting his eyes, they flashed him eager smiles and more than one hastily stepped away from the other men and looked at Rhett hopefully. A tall brunette being courted by a thickset youth in one corner waved at him and blew a kiss in his direction.

Belle cursed under her breath and shook her fists at them. Gathering up her skirts, she made to go to the brunette who was still smiling coquettishly, but stopped in her tracks when Rhett said sharply, "We have work to do". He still had his back turned to her but motioned for her to join him at the table.

For a moment, there was sullen silence and Rhett contained his growing impatience as the slow flurry of rustling silk announced her deliberate seductive steps around the table. Belle's jealousy was nothing new to him and he waited calmly as she lowered herself into the chair opposite him.

He looked up across the burnished table at the young girl. In the sheen of the wavering lamplights, he could see the powder and rouge shining in a thin film of sweat over her cheeks and nose. The summer nights were getting hotter. They had been in the bar room for less than an hour and he could already feel the sluggish fumes of the coastal heat of the day rising in dank layers from the shadowy corners and settling into his clothes. Scattered across the barroom, where lanterns and candle lights flared, the smoke and vapors mixed with the summer time sultriness and churned the air into a steaming miasma of heat. The huge vaulted wooden ceiling was dotted with myriad palmetto fans, their massive wingspans covering the room in broad swathes as they vainly pumped air night and day. These fans were perpetually set in motion, swaying back and forth from suspended braided ropes manned by discreetly lurking shadows, strategically hidden by tall planters from the eyes of the milling crowds.

Crossing her ankles and arranging her skirts around her, Belle cast a furtive look at Rhett and pouted.

Since he had arrived, she had hardly had a chance to have a moment alone with him. She had waited patiently every day and today, when she finally received word from the stable boy, she had pulled out her best low cut organzas and chiffons and silks and spent the good part of the evening at Mamie Bixby's, fixing her unruly red locks into smooth flowing ringlets and wispy curls.

"And fat lot of good it did me", she muttered grouchily as she looked at the object of her efforts absorbed in the glittering depths of a crystal cut-glass. For all her trouble, he had not cast as much as a side-ways glance at her!

The red lipstick on her lips shone in a flinty pout as she pushed her lower lip out petulantly but after casting another quick look at Rhett's face, she decided to keep her peace.

The man was in a strange mood tonight.

She took a deep breath and thought quickly, " Tell me again honey, are you saying she does know you then"?

Rhett shook his head, his patience finally giving way under the heat and the interminable noise and chatter in the ball room. His eyes darkened as he squinted at the glass before him.

"I don't know. She called me by name. But I can swear I have never seen her. Her eyes..", he hesitated and then said darkly, "I would have remembered."

At the change in his tone, Belle pricked up her ears. She looked again at Rhett, studying his face more closely and decided she did not care for that faraway look that came into his eyes whenever he mentioned the girl.

Belle had never met her but had taken an instinctive dislike to this girl even before Rhett arrived on the scene.

The Butlers were not close friends, but Belle's mother was an overt socialite and loved to entertain. It was at Sunday tea that the Watlings learned from Catherine, of the unexpected visitor at the Butler house. Catherine to her credit had been taciturn and guarded in her responses to her curious inquiring hosts but Raydon had been easy to corner and when Belle heard from him, first-hand , about the green eyes and saw his eyes glaze over mistily, she'd decided she had heard enough.

Now watching Rhett covertly from under her lashes, she felt an uneasy weight settle heavily in her chest. Yes, she did not like this at all. The eyes again. All this talk about the eyes! What was it about this girl and her eyes that had all the men folk gabbering about her like blithering idiots!

She swallowed angrily and tried to keep her face bland as she waited for Rhett to speak. She must be careful. Rhett could read people like a book and she certainly, was no exception.

He had been staring into his glass again. It was full up with the amber liquid that had remained untouched since they had arrived. Belle looked at her side of the table with the three empty glasses. She sighed inwardly, desperately wishing for another drink. The evening was not going as she had hoped and now it appeared the night would not either. She cast another longing look at Rhett's brooding face.

Finally, unable to stand the silence and the unreadable expression on his swarthy face, she cleared her throat and said placatingly, "Well honey, 'tis simple then. She must have heard who you are and of course she knows your name! It is your home she is in, isn't she? And she has been there awhile. Of course, she has heard about you. Maybe Raydon or the family or perhaps the servants then. I don't see what all the fuss is about honey", she said in a wheedling tone. "You know how Rose likes to talk and she loves you the most. Surely she must've.." . The dark look Rhett threw at her stopped her in her tracks.

"No one talked", he said in a quiet voice. "No one. Not even Rose, I checked".

He was still looking into the glass as he spoke, and Belle drew in a sharp breath at the look on his face. The dark depths in his eyes seemed alit with a strange auburn light from the glowing reflection of the candlelight bouncing back from the brandy glinting in the glass.

"You know the story Belle. You heard as much as I did. After the carriage accident, Raydon swears she could not remember a thing. She was hurt badly, and the good doctor described the injuries to her head. Peters confirmed the memory loss himself and said that he was surprised she even remembered her name."

Belle shifted uneasily at the soft undercurrent in Rhett's tone.

"Raydon sure did a number on her. Of course, they thought she was going to die. They would have hanged the golden boy of the Butler household, the old man's one and only", he chuckled softly.

We can't have that, can we?", he added bitterly as an afterthought.

For the first time that evening, Rhett Butler raised his head and as the flames in his eyes leaped and danced, he looked at her full in the face and smiled. In that moment, Belle thought, nothing she had ever seen had appeared more dangerous to her than the man sitting before her.

Rhett continued, his voice as silky as a kitten's fur. " The crafty old goat called in the prodigal black sheep to take the fall and so the sheep came, bleating to the beat". His lips stretched in a grin and Belle shrank back into her seat, her heart thumping wildly. She could feel the moisture trickling down her breasts as she licked her lips dryly. She really needed that drink.

He continued softly, "It was all planned out. Bribed the court officials and the magistrates, primed the witnesses and the story switched around town. The hapless victim was painted a green eyed temptress, a sinful paramour of the Butler castaway and of course a dozen people would swear that I had been driving the carriage, that I had been home for a fortnight or more when…"

"But Rhett", Belle said, her voice quivering a little, "You planned that out. If you did not want to help, why did you.."?

"I did, didn't I", he said as he measured her with his dark eyes. Then suddenly his face changed and the tension in the air appeared to dissipate just like that. He laughed again and said, "The joke's on me then, isn't it? Why did I do it?", he mused softly. " Certainly I couldn't care if the old man dropped dead from a broken heart or if his beloved son got his goddamn honorable neck stretched by a few inches more, could I? Maybe I just like to live dangerously", he grinned.

"No matter, for you see Belle, the joke's truly on me. Not only does the girl live but she now has everyone believing that she is my paramour". He laughed again and finally reached for his glass and downed the liquid in one swift movement.

"They told me she had been calling for me", he said, his voice belying his puzzlement. " Screamed my name every night. I have a feeling Raydon is in love with her. Said he couldn't bear to hear her calling for me night after night", he said and grinned maliciously. "You should have seen them in the library, Belle. Quite a scare she gave them deciding to live. Upset all their pretty little plans, mine included. They are in over their head. The old man was fit to be tied by the end of it, screaming for my head and demanding to know if she is my lover". The light glinted off his white teeth as he chuckled at the remembrance.

He leaned back in the chair and looked across at her again and waited with a smile. Belle fidgeted in her seat and finally asked the question that hung like a deadweight above them, suspended in the thick warm air.

"Well"?

The smile did not leave his face as he shook his head just once.

"But how? Who…"?

"Good question. And the response is something I am avidly interested in".

"You met her. You talked to her. And you say you believe her? "

"I do", he said softly.

"But there is something else. Something that is bothering you isn't it"?

He did not answer but leaned forward and placed his large brown hands on the table. His face changed again, and his black eyes hardened as he thought back on the last words he had heard before the girl collapsed in his arms.

"Someone is going to die. She knows it and I don't know how she knows it but I am going to find out. I am going to find out all I can about this green-eyed beauty."

"Yes, she is beautiful" he added wistfully, his face softening, his voice taking on a lazy lilt to it. He shook his head as if trying to clear it from some dreamy haze. "But I have a bad feeling about her. I think I know a thing or two about women and this one is deadly".

And then he spoke the words that broke Belle Watling's heart and turned her blood to ice.

On the way home, alone in the carriage and clutching her paisley shawl tightly around her, Belle shivered in the sweltering heat of the summer night air as silent tears streamed down her painted face. She didn't know why she was crying but the tears wouldn't stop.

It was just the way he had spoken them.

Dimly from the core of her misery, the memory of his words came to her again.. "God help the man who ever really loves her.."