A gust of wind danced across the back of Scarlett's leg, the soft current slipping through the twisted blankets to her bare skin. Her lips curved into a faint smile and before opening her eyes, she stretched out her arm. Her hand caught hold of empty sheets and air, and she bolted upright. Rhett was gone.

She stared down at where he had slept, the crush of his body still contouring the bed, and her face bled red. Last night hadn't been a dream. She trailed her gaze over the jumble of sheets and blankets to her own exposed body. Horrified, she scrambled off the mattress, snatched up the discarded nightgown from the floor, and shimmied into it with the slickness of rain on ice.

She panted and sank down into a chair in front of the balcony doors. Streaks of sunlight blasted into the room and she blinked at the brightness, her mind working a hundred times faster than her eyes. Every thing that had happened last night tore through her memory—the lashing, insistent kisses, the patient, gentle caresses, his rough, experienced hands on her smooth, untouched body, his gruff voice as he demanded her not to turn aside, not to look away, not to blink, and woven into every moment and breath, his unyielding, depthless eyes as they coaxed and commanded her, pulling her under his control and drowning her in his heat.

She took a long, deep breath. It was as if she had just come up for air, her lungs filled with the tidal wave that had tried to overcome her. Even her lips tasted of salt. How peculiar. The world was peculiar—every thing looked the same and every thing looked different. The doors to the unknown had been ripped open and she was suddenly staring at the same view, but through the other side of the entrance.

For years she had known that something happened between a husband and wife to create a baby. Growing up in the rural hills of Georgia, she had seen animals obscenely quiver against another beast, but she had never tied those crude couplings to what humans did to multiply. Last night, some of it had been mortifyingly messy and stingingly painful, and she remembered being momentarily appalled when she had realized that her angelic mother had been involved with something so barbaric. But then Rhett would touch her, causing her to moan, drawing a sigh from her lips and stoking a fire in her belly she had never known existed, and she would feel that nothing had ever felt as natural or as sacred as his flesh rubbing against her own.

And that feeling frightened her, more than anything ever had, more than hearing his voice issue out from the depths of the sofa after her most humiliating moment, more than marrying him, or leaving her home and family, more than even the act of giving her body over to him. It had felt so right to lie in his arms, to follow him into a world unknown to her. His hoarse whispers of "Sweet, sweet my darling" echoed in her ears. The eagerness of his kisses popped over her tongue. Even now, his power over her made her tremble, and with her heart hammering, hammering to be touched by him again, hammering to understand the desires he had provoked in her, hammering with an awakening she was too young and naïve to appreciate, she despised him.

These new, astonishing sensations disconcerted her as much as they excited her, and so she became angry, angry with herself, angry with her betraying body, and angry at Rhett. She wouldn't be a fool and blindly throw herself at another man she didn't understand—she had learned her lesson. The fox of wrath nipped at her, gnawing at her insides and obscuring the true source of her anger.

The light breeze flowed in from a cracked-open window. The air raced across her arms and all of her frustration oozed out of her, the perplexing, disturbing remembrance of desire flooding in to steal its place.

With the crispness and light of morning on her skin, Scarlett didn't know what to think or what to trust. She knew her mother had shared a bed with her father, but she doubted her mother had ever experienced the same deep, throbbing ecstasy that had erupted in her as she had reveled in Rhett's embrace last night. Her mother was too good and pure to ever have the same longing, the same urge to have the whole, carnal thing repeated over and over again. And Scarlett didn't know if that made her somehow unworthy of the heaven she knew Ellen would one day inhabit. On a superstitious whim, she crossed herself and tried to shake all these warring emotions of virtue and vice away.

At that moment the suite door opened and Scarlett whipped her head up and around. Her giddy panic blew out of her and she watched Rebekkah gracefully weave her way toward her, balancing a steaming breakfast tray on one hand and carrying a dress in the other. Scarlett's gaze swung between the delicious smelling food—fragrant, fresh coffee, cooked bacon and hot cakes dripping with honey—and the gorgeous, lush green taffeta dress.

"Is that all for me?" Scarlett cried, swiveling around in her chair and snatching a strip of bacon before Rebekkah had placed the tray on the table beside her. "The dress is absolutely darling."

"Mornin' Miz Scarlett," was all Rebekkah said.

She hung the dress on the armoire, brushing it down with her palm. Her sharp, ebony eyes swiftly scanned the room, seeing everything and, without being told, knowing more about what had happened last night than Scarlett did. She began tidying up, her movements sure and quick, her fast hands and agile body turning the chore into a dance. She pushed the leftover cart from supper out into the hall, made the bed, drew the drapes and swept up the carpets in fluid, waltz-like motions.

Scarlett chewed on the gristly part of her second bacon strip, a little embarrassed and mollified. There was something in Rebekkah's regal air that reminded her of Dilcey. She held her head high, and her shoulders straight. She could have been thirty or sixty, her creamy skin blemishless and taut, almost the color of hazel in this golden morning light. Her accent was thick and elegant, a blend of the vernacular of her people and the nasal drawl of stuffy parlor rooms. But there was something else that was familiar about Rebekkah, something Scarlett couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Rebekkah, have we met before?" Scarlett asked, turning on her brightest smile and setting her coffee cup down. She wasn't fool enough to think she didn't need Rebekkah on her side, for however long she was near by. "Have you ever been to Georgia?"

"No ma'am."

"No you haven't been to Georgia or no we haven't met before?"

"Neither, ma'am."

Rebekkah finished straightening the fluffing the pillows on the sofa and stood up, erect as a pine tree. She folded her hands and ran her expert gaze up and down Scarlett's body.

"Do you wanna wait a bit, or do you think you kin fit into your stays Miz Scarlett? This dress is measured for seventeen inches."

"That depends on you, Rebekkah. My Mammy could get me to sixteen inches if need be, even after eating a whole sweet potato and two cuts of smoked ham."

"I kin always do what I need to do, ma'am."

"I believe that."

For the first time, Rebekkah's face broke into a smile, revealing wrinkles and laugh marks Scarlett hadn't been able to notice before, but could have sworn she'd seen before. Rebekkah's fleeting break from austerity wasn't enough to jog Scarlett's memory free of its mist, though. The raspberry-chocolate mouth almost immediately fell into bland lines and she started to help Scarlett into her stays and dress. And Scarlett all but forgot that anything existed outside of easy-draping necklines and criss-crossed bodices.

"Are we going somewhere?" Scarlett asked a half hour later, twirling in the long mirror and admiring how the green of the dress perfectly matched her eyes.

"I kin take you around Charleston. I know it well."

"Oh, that would be fine." She stopped preening and looked up at Rebekkah. A dress this pretty should be seen. "Do you know when Mr. Butler will be back?"

"You mean Cap'ain Butler?"

Scarlett frowned. She didn't know why, but she hadn't realized that Rhett was considered a captain. But that had been silly of her. She rolled the name around on her tongue. Oh! She liked the sound of that. A pride that had nothing to do with her planted itself in her breast. The wife of a captain would demand respect. The wife of a captain could show all those busybody, too-smart-for-their-own britches Charlestonians a thing or two. Her green eyes positively sparked, a sweet, reckless defiance lighting up her face. This morning every emotion that pulsed within her, no matter how brief or small, was raw, every nerve of her body and heart frayed open at the ends.

"Yes, yes, will Captain Butler be back soon? I would hate to miss him."

"I dunno, ma'am. I 'sepct his has loads to do. He got to be off in a few days, don't he?"

Scarlett perked up, a bristle of annoyance running up against her happy mood. She snatched her gloves up from off the dresser and briskly tugged them on.

"Off? It must have slipped my mind, and his apparently—where exactly is my husband going?"

Rebekkah raised her thick eyebrows. "To England. I'm sure he was plannin' on tellin' you right quick."

Scarlett clenched her hands, digging her nails into the lace. England? He was abandoning her in this new town, with no friends, and without any warning? How dare he! Hot words bubbled to her mouth, but she squelched them. It wasn't Rebekkah's fault Rhett had kept things from her. Mammy's voice rang in her mind, the chime that sugar catches more flies than vinegar. She bit back the torrent of wrath and swallowed it down.

"Is there anything else you can think of that he might have forgotten to tell me?"

"Not really, 'cept he done told me to take you round the town and show you some of the finer parts of Charleston. I can't say when he'll be back to the hotel. I never make assumptions ef I kin help it, 'specially 'bout Mista' Rhett."

"Mister Rhett? And do you know Mister Rhett all that well? How long has Captain Butler been staying at this hotel?"

Rebekkah pursed her full lips. "I dunno how long he been stayin' here. I wish I could be of more help. I jes' got here four days befor' you."

"Four days? But, but don't you belong to the hotel?"

Rebekkah's face turned to stone, but she answered in the same, measured, melodious voice. "I s'pose you might say, Miz' Scarlett, that I belong to you. Mista' Rhett done bought me five days ago, paid a heap o' money, too, if you was curious."

Scarlett's nostrils flared. She could not curb her wrath any longer, she had never been good at bridling her temper, and Rebekkah with her roundabout, impudent answers had dug underneath her skin, burrowing straight through to her festering fury. It was a fury so much the worse after last night, after he had opened her up only to leave her, lying there alone and exposed. She stomped her foot and spluttered, her eyes snapping and her body shaking.

"Great balls of fire! I don't care how much you cost. I want to know what else you know about my husband—what else you know about me! Tell me or I'll take a strap to you and sell you back to where you came from, you hear?"

Rebekkah did not flinch or blink, but silently, coolly waited until Scarlett spun away. She waited long enough for Scarlett to glare back at her a few times, to pace the room, her skirts swinging angrily and her neck dripping with sweat, for Scarlett to finally, childishly flop down onto the bed and mope up at her.

"I wasn't goin' to tell you, cause I didn' think it was my place, but I reckon I got the right to tell you now. Mista' Rhett did tell me somethin' 'bout you—'side from the fact that you gots yourself a fine ol' temper—he done tol' me when he bought me—bought me off of his daddy who he hadn' seen in more years than you been alive—that he didn' know what he was goin' to do with Pa and Ma O'Hara's daughter. Now I don' know why Mista' Rhett hasn' seen fit to tell you 'bout his life. I don' know why he married you. I have my suspicions. But, Miz' Scarlett, I will tell you, that ef you ever threaten me 'gain like that, I'll tell Mista' Rhett and I guarantee you, he'll bullwhip you sooner than he ever gonna bullwhip me."

With that, Rebekkah turned around, swiped up the cold tray, and marched over to the door. "I'll be downstairs in the lobby when you ready."

Scarlett stared after her, dumbstruck and barely breathing. She suddenly knew why Rebekkah seemed so familiar. Those eyes! That grin! They weren't from her past, but from her very near and abruptly damaged present. Scarlett had thought it odd when Ellen had told her on the eve of her wedding that Rhett had said she needn't bring anybody from Tara, not even Prissy to help out on the train. But her brain had been bogged down by so many other things these last few days that she hadn't had time to wonder at it. Now she would never wonder again.

A noxious sickness swirled in Scarlett's gut. She wanted wretch onto the carpet, curl up into a ball, and cry. But she couldn't do that—she couldn't just give up. She had given up too much already. She pulled herself up off the bed, dragged her feet across the floor and slowly, deliberately opened the door. Her chin quivered slightly, the rest of her face as still as glass. She wouldn't think about anything now. She wouldn't think about last night. It must have been a dream, some strange, beautiful dream. She didn't even remember falling asleep afterwards. She only remembered—knew she would always remember—waking up.

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