Scarlett woke up, drenched in sweat, out of breath, and disoriented. She was surrounded by almost complete darkness, clutching something soft against her chest, and lying on an unfamiliar bed. She stayed there, her body rigid with shock and her mind groggy with sleep, until she heard the muffled cough of a man and her nose tingled with the spicy scent of a cigar and the whiff of burning wood.
Slowly she sat up, her hair falling across her shoulders, and looked toward the fireplace. Rhett's outline wavered in the hazy, smoky glow. He switched between lifting a glowing cigar to his lips and a glass that scintillated with flecks of yellow light. A mixture of dread and sleepiness overlaid her vision. She watched him for awhile, without him knowing. The chill of the dream lingered on her skin and brain, and Scarlett couldn't remember why she had been mad at him, and couldn't muster the energy to search her memory. She recalled his touch, his warmth, the strength of his arms as they enfolded her last night.
Lowering her gaze to the nightgown still fisted in her hands, she hesitated and then dropped it to the ground. She didn't know what time it was, or how long she had been asleep. Rebekkah must have come back at some point because a wrapper was strewn across the bottom of the bed. She tossed the covers off, throwing on the wrapper as she stood, and boldly walked toward Rhett.
His eyes flicked her way and her blood roused with trepidation. She paused, wondering why she hadn't just stayed in bed. He lazily sucked on his cigar and tapped the ashes into a tray beside him, glancing at her again. She saw his white teeth glint, his mouth twisted into that casual leer, and took the final steps to the chair across from him.
The fire's angular shadows and uneven light obscured some of his face, but Scarlett could now perceive the dusting of stubble on his jaw and the crescents of fatigue underneath his eyes. His exhaustion made her relax a little more into her chair, her understanding of him too dim to sense the latency of his power over her.
"Good morning," he drawled. "I hope I didn't wake you."
"Good morning? What time is it?"
"Must be close to four. I heard the three o'clock bell chime when I opened the lobby doors."
"Four in the morning? I…I haven't slept through supper like that since I was nine or ten—and that's only because I fell off a tree and landed flat on my stomach."
"Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are," he quoted, blowing out a plume of smoke. "Nothing comes between you and your food, does it?"
She shrugged, unbothered by his taunt. The rules about how an unmarried lady should and shouldn't eat had always seemed impractical to her. In fact, all the rules about what a single lady in pursuit of a bachelor should and shouldn't do had all seemed ludicrously unnatural to her. And now that they no longer applied to her, she didn't mind deriding them, starting with the food habits.
"Why shouldn't I like to eat?" she asked tartly. "Girls only pretend not to have an appetite because men are silly and don't know what they want."
Rhett laughed and pitched the cigar into the grate. "Is that so? Pray enlighten me."
"Of course it's so. Men think they want all sorts of things—fainting spells at every turn, "Oh aren't you wonderful" after they've shot a 'possum for the hundredth time in their lives, and worst of all, women who turn their noses up at anything that tastes good. I never understood why a girl had to be so ridiculous to catch a husband. Well, I never fainted, and in the end, it didn't matter if I nibbled like a sparrow or gobbled like a turkey at a barbecue. I still caught a husband, almost two."
"Just not quite the one you wanted, if memory serves me right."
"Oh, you would bring that up. Well, Ashley's the biggest cad of all. He lacked the gumption to marry anyone but frail, mealy Melanie Hamilton, who I swear I never saw eat more than two bites put together at any public gathering. Gracious! What fool man actually wants a wife who hates sitting at meals with him?"
"I can't speak for other men, and certainly not for Mr. Wilkes, but I wouldn't mind a wife who hated sitting at meals, at least by herself."
"Saints preserve us! Are you going to go on about that again? I have one supper by myself and you act like some wounded puppy that didn't get enough scraps at the table. You talk a big game about freeing me from my chains and saving me from some fantastic prison, but you're just as hypocritical as the rest of the husbands who claim to want a girl who can't stand to put a fork to her mouth and doesn't have more than just cotton between her ears, but expect the same girl to be a wife who has enough brains to run a plantation and have the health to pop out a baby every year."
"I will give your crude comments about the supposed heart's desires of mankind the silence they deserve, adding only my own personal affront at being called a hypocrite and a wounded puppy in the same breath. I don't know which offends me more."
Scarlett tapped the rope from her wrapper against her leg and rolled her eyes. "Ha! If I've offended you, it's no less than you deserve."
"That's probably true, but you're in the middle of a very huffy—and might I add very attractive—tirade, so I'm sure you have something specific in mind, some precise wrongdoing you're peeved about, beyond the unjust diet restrictions we southern men place upon our southern women. You can't be that much of a glutton. What else has piqued your ire, my lovely epicure?"
"Your lovely what?"
"My lovely simpleton, for all that it matters now. Don't evade my question. What's the real bee in your bonnet?"
Rhett grinned, praising and daring her all at once. High on the shallow wrath that had sprung up, she found it hard not to laugh right back at him. A dimple appeared and vanished on her cheek. Involuntarily she let her guard down more. Flustered and starving from all her talk of food, she still couldn't remember what was irritating her so, until the question slipped out and a note of petulance seeped into her tone, betraying her against her will.
"You were gone all day, even before breakfast. Why'd you get back only an hour ago Rhett?"
His tired eyes instantly flashed with an alertness that made her flush and she looked down, pinning the wrapper tighter across her knees. A spasm of bewildering pleasure clutched at her heart—so vigorously that it might have been pain.
"Dare I hope you had intended on waiting to eat supper with me tonight—before you fell sleep?"
"You may dare hope whatever you like," she said, her nostrils distending with forced contempt and her face flipping up. "But that doesn't mean it is any more likely to be true."
"Ah," he sighed with mock regret. "To have you dash yet another hope. How unwise of you to so hastily crush my dreams. I was going to flout convention by feeding you, and offer you the last of the supper that I stole from the kitchens. But alas, your lack of consideration leaves me feeling ungenerous."
"I'm not hungry," she declared, with a disdain that would have made Mammy proud.
"Well, in that case…"
Brandishing his arm with the flare of a bull fighter, he reached down by his feet to a plate that Scarlett hadn't noticed and set it on his lap. The meal wasn't much—just a dry, cold cut sandwich and a thin triangle of peach pie—but her stomach lurched with hunger at the sight of it. His eyes twinkled when he picked up the sandwich and bit into it with indecent relish.
Scarlett's eyes quivered with exasperation and she scooted up to the edge of her chair, fully expecting him to hand the plate over to her now that he had poked fun at her voraciousness, but he just winked at her. And then he took another bite and another, prolonging his rude joke with exaggerated enjoyment, savoring each bite like it was the most delectable food he'd ever eaten, licking his lips, and sighing heavily. The sandwich was just about gone, but he set it down, picked up the piece of pie—and she cracked. Salivating and chomping at the bit in more ways than one, indignant that he always made her feel like a ravenous imbecile, she strode across the narrow space between their two chairs and yanked the plate off his lap, and the pie directly out of his hands.
"You already finished my sandwich," she fumed, dropping the pie onto the plate and flicking her peach-covered fingers in his face. "I'll thank you not to touch my dessert, too."
She twirled away, with an insolent, heady smirk on her lips and a bounce to her hips, but didn't get very far. A sharp tug to her wrapper stopped her feet and wrenched her backwards. The plate flipped into the air, the pie and sandwich crust flying down with it, as her legs collapsed and she flailed onto Rhett's lap.
Her hair tumbling everywhere, she flung him a look of shocked outrage, which immediately evaporated under his gaze. Lust leaped out of his black eyes, as real and scorching as any flame. The emptiness in her stomach quickly caved into a solid mass of nervous desire. Panic and anticipation sped in her veins. She wanted to push him off. She wanted to pull him near.
Rhett thumbed the peach drippings off his face and braced his arms around her, the muscles rippling distractingly against her own arms.
"Red-hot little rebel, aren't you?"
"Let me go."
"I don't think I can.""
"Can't or won't?"
"Does it matter to you—if it does, I might tell you."
"Why would it matter to me?"
He dipped his head down, his lips tickling her earlobe and his stubble scratching her cheek. "You can tell me if you missed me. You are my bride, after all, and this is our honeymoon."
"I…I…"
His hand slid under her wrapper, under her pantaloons and started inching up her leg. She couldn't think. She could barely move. He pressed his mouth along her jaw, down her neck and onto the delicate, sunburned skin by her collarbone, leisurely kisses of the faintest contact.
"I am sorry I had to leave, but war waits for no man, or woman. Not even you." He pulled back suddenly, his eyes heavy with desire. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever held in my arms. I didn't want to let you go this morning."
She searched his swarthy face, wondering what his eyes were trying to tell her and why his voice had roughened. His roaming hand rested limply on her thigh, a searing iron on her flesh. She sucked back her need and sucked in her breath.
"You…you didn't have to. You could have waited for me to wake up."
"Could I have?" he asked softly. "Until marrying you, I never had to wrestle with angels or devils. I just took what I wanted and to heaven or hell with the rest. Now I have to weigh my options, figure out what I'm supposed to do with the granddaughter of a French aristocrat and the daughter of an Irish peasant, all while her world's on the brink of burning to the ground and I'm on the verge of spinning my gold from its ashes."
His speech about civilizations incinerating and gold accruing ran through her, she hardly heard anything after he had uttered the word, daughter. That single word had slapped her with the force of a falling tree branch. Instantly she had remembered why she had been mad at him—before the truth about Rebekkah had clouded every other thought from her mind and the punishing day had beat her into a restive slumber—he'd complained about her to that demon woman and told the maid things he hadn't even told Scarlett, confiding in some self-righteous servant before he had discussed his plans with his wife.
Hot with wrath this time, the hot, unpredictable wrath he always provoked in her, she shoved him away and scrambled out of his lap. Her chest rocked with the violence of the passion racing out of her system and she sputtered at him, until her tongue latched onto her anger.
"You are a cold-hearted brute, Rhett Butler! I never asked for any of this. I never asked you to eavesdrop on me or to marry me or to waste any of your precious time worrying over what to do with me. Well, you needn't concern yourself with me another minute. Just go back to your stupid ship and sail to England or Halifax, or if you had any decency, sink your ship straight through to the bottom of the ocean, and I'll take my things and go back home tonight."
Rhett sprawled his long legs comfortably out and folded his hands over his chest. Something shifted in his expression, the flame in his gaze flickering. And when he spoke, the gruffness had flattened into complete exhaustion.
"Which of your aunts visited you this afternoon Scarlett? Was it your Aunt Eulalie?"
Scarlett felt like he'd just swiped the rug out from under her, and her tight mouth dropped wide open. "Aunt 'Lalie? What does—"
"Nothing," he smoothly interrupted. "I can tell from your face that your Aunt Eulalie, who happens to be my mother's best friend, you know, has not made good on her threat as of yet. She has nothing to do with your evident information on my travel plans. And you wouldn't have come up with England on your own. Now, your Aunt Pauline lives too far away and she wasn't nearly as adamant as her sister when they came to me about a week ago and tried to dissuade me from yoking you to my sinful wagon. None of my family would have visited you—Father wouldn't have allowed it. He nearly gutted me with a dinner spoon when I graced his doorstep and bought…Ah! Rebekkah told you! You must have made her mad. Do you mind satisfying my curiosity and telling me just what you did? She's not goaded very easily into breaking confidences. She's like me in that way—but you must have noticed she's like me in many ways. You're uneducated, not unintelligent."
Rhett finished, scratching his jaw, and Scarlett gaped at him, the sound of his knuckles against his stubble rasping as loud as gunfire in the silence of her stupor. Her brain was spinning madly around and her fury had completely deflated. With a bland boredom that had captivated her, Rhett had reeled off these familial facts; as though they weren't startling revelations that required some preface or intonation, conversing about secrets that southerners didn't confess on their deathbeds and uncovering skeletons that families buried in the graveyard alongside their deceased loved ones. She staggered back to her chair, and after opening and closing her mouth a few times, was able to speak.
"Rebekkah's…she really is your—"
"Yes," he answered before she had the chance to ask, refolding his hands. "Rebekkah's not exactly a well-kept secret, although I'm probably the only Butler with the lack of manners to talk about it. I figured even you had pieced that one together by now. You had, hadn't you?"
She did not reply. The devastation of his calmly delivered disclosures was weighting her down—clamping shut her lips. A touch of concern flared in his eyes.
"Answer me Scarlett. Truly I wasn't trying to shock you. You had figured it out on your own, hadn't you?"
His sudden apprehension for her delicacy of mind churned her hatred. A trickle of cold, impersonal disgust drew her up and smoothed her ruffled mood. How could he speak about such things so indifferently and inconstantly? There was something terribly wrong with him, something rotten in the bones.
"Yes," she said coolly. "Yes. Now can we please not discuss it any further? It's vulgar and obscene."
"Well, I am sorry you had to have it confirmed in such a way. I hadn't meant to spring it on you like that, but you must admit you deserved whatever blow an admission like that would deliver. You bruised my pride, and I bruised yours."
"You did nothing of the kind. You can't hurt me."
"Husbands, even if their wives dislike them as much as mine dislikes me, can always hurt their wives. Rebekkah is proof of that."
Scarlett jerked herself toward the waning fire. "I said I don't wish to talk about this. You should respect my request."
"And you should respect me. I'm not one of your country beaux, shaking in my boots over whether I've made you too mad to warrant a kiss at the end of the ball. I'll kiss you, and more, if and when I want to."
Scarlett gasped and whipped around to him, sputtering in outrage. "I wasn't making an idle threat. I'll pack my trunk tonight if you keep talking like that."
"And I'll unpack it tomorrow morning, with you watching from our bed. Don't make threats you can't follow through on, pet. It only leads to debts you can't pay."
Rhett hadn't moved, hadn't lifted one of his long, stretched-out legs or wiggled his gently-folded fingers. From his slightly tilted head to his shoeless feet, he appeared to personify graceful ease and disregard. But something in his voice had instantly put Scarlett on edge, the finest precipice between fear and ecstasy. She searched his inscrutable face, trying to see the intensity she had heard in his voice, wondering if her ears had played tricks on her or if her eyes were now deceiving her. She didn't know that the sensuality was always there, as ready to be unleashed in him as it was ready to be untapped in her.
Wanting to get away, she wound her arms tightly around her body and said, "I wouldn't have to make threats, if you acted like a gentleman and treated me like a lady."
"But you aren't a lady. I thought we covered this, weeks ago."
"Oh!" she cried. "How can—"
"Now don't get all up in arms again—I've been awake for almost a full day, sunrise to sunrise, and if you try my patience one more time I'm not sure what I'll do. I can't vouch for any bad behavior that might come from it. You can't decry the blockheads who think a woman needs to be a simpering, helpless wench one minute and then expect to be treated like one of those idiotic maidens in distress the next. Now you aren't a lady and I'm not a gentleman. And I believe that if you could learn to accept that, things would go much more smoothly for the both of us. But I can see from your sulky expression that you have no intention of paying any heed to my words, and every intention of pretending you're that docile, brainless belle that I saw you imitate with perfection at the barbecue. So I will not waste any more of my breath, at the moment, trying to persuade you otherwise. I will say, however, that whomever you wish to portray in public, or in private, my pretty hypocrite, I will still treat you as your true self—that indomitable spitfire who throws vases and threatens scoundrels to make good on sham proposals."
She tossed him a look of pure disdain, having let his words babble over her as an inconsequential brook. "Is there anything else you wish to tell me about myself?"
"Oh, you already have decided you know everything there is to know about you. I would like to tell you a few things about Rebekkah—"
"No," she spat. "We are not—"
"About Rebekkah, though," he continued on, deaf to her objection, "now that we've opened our own trite Pandora's box. She is meant to be your ally, Scarlett. But you're going to have to earn her trust and respect. I imagine she's not much different than that behemoth of a black woman I saw at our wedding—the one who ground her teeth at me whenever I came near her. Rebekkah's an old soul, and old souls require time to open their hearts to new souls. And you, darling, are as new as they come. But get in her good graces, and you have an ally for life. I'm sure you can do it. You have more charm than the law allows."
Scarlett's stony glower faltered at his unexpected compliment. Rhett noticed the softening of her expression and laughed.
"All you need is a little butter and sugar, and you turn into dough."
"Oh hush up."
"Soon enough, I'm exhausted." Rhett's voice took on the same even, boredom from earlier. "You need an ally here Scarlett, and you need Rebekkah. She knows everybody in this town and will keep you out of trouble—and from making too much trouble while I'm away."
"Away? Exactly where are you going away to?"
"England, as you know, and a few other places."
A quiver of bitterness slicked down her throat at his words. For the second time, the specter of Rebekkah's past had blocked out Rhett's other failings from her view. Plague that woman and plague him! Scarlett's hackles started to rise once more.
"Why didn't you tell me about England before?"
"The moment hadn't presented itself until tonight."
She waited for him to say more, but his flat, firm lips stayed closed.
"And why can't I go with you? I'm sure other captains take their wives."
"Women are bad luck on board, and so are cats. You're the most feline woman I've ever met. Before we could leave port, you'd bring the wrath of Neptune down onto my ship. I'm not willing to risk it. I'll take my chances and leave you here, with Rebekkah."
She chafed at his acerbic reply and thornily asked, "And who am I supposed to stay with? I'm not staying in this hotel, if that's what you're planning. Why, the least you could do before you abandon me is to send me back to Tara."
"While you're in town, you are welcome to stay here in this hotel, or if you are open to it, your Aunt Eulalie has said she'll take you in, so long as I'm out of the country. She still hopes to fold you under her wing and shield you from my fallen ways."
"You should have told me about my aunts. It wasn't right to make me believe I was as friendless in Charleston as you are."
"Why? Does it make you feel better to know that you have Charleston relations who braved the stink and filth of my ignominy to plead on your behalf?"
"You make anything to do with morals sound foul," she spat. "You'd probably twist scripture, if it suited your needs."
"I don't need to twist anything; the churches do that without any help from me. I don't consider myself a blasphemer, either, just because I don't believe that money's the root of all evil."
"Oh? And what is? I didn't know you were your own prophet."
"I'm not. I just think men are the root of all evil. Money's just the motivation. And something I'd like more of."
"Money can't buy everything," she chimed mechanically.
"When we have enough of it, you'll see that it does."
"Enough? Aren't you rich?"
"Shouldn't you have asked me that before marrying me?"
She frowned at him and he went on, an energy to his voice she had never heard before. It was calculating, but with a deep, low fervor.
"I haven't been slaving away all day for nothing, leaving my puerile bride in our wedding bed for a quick buck here and there. I am working harder than you ever will, or ever have, to gain my fortune out of the impending wreckage of our archaic kingdom, a fortune you will undoubtedly profit from. And when I have all the gold that this destruction is going to smelt together for me, then we'll see how you talk about what money can and cannot buy. Darling, it's going to buy our future. And for a son who was kicked out of his home penniless and with only the clothes on his back, that means something."
She stared at him, the pincers of confusion and anxiety poking at her brain. What had he meant about wreckage and fortunes? Wasn't he already wealthy? And what was going to be wrecked? Scarlett thought of the troops practicing drills out by the marina, the construction of war ships in the bay, and the banners flapping in every shop window. The trappings and signs of the war to come, the war she hadn't had the time or interest to contemplate. But, the war wouldn't do all that—it was going to be over in one battle.
Something with sharper, deadlier blades stabbed her as she thought this, more piercing than the pokes from before. She was beyond her depth. These fears were beyond her grasp. She saw Rhett again, her eyes clearing of the stormy clouds, and knew he held the answers.
"What wreckage Rhett? What's going to happen?"
His eyes glinted at her, shining with a recklessness that she was too distracted to notice.
"Nothing, Scarlett," he assured. "Nothing of importance, at least not at the moment, and nothing that I won't protect you from."
She looked into his dark, cloaked face and believed him. For whatever reason, she believed him. Still his words had touched a nerve, cycling back the turmoil that her dream had created in her only an hour ago. If a tempest was twisting her way, she wanted to be at home when it hit.
"I want to go to Tara, Rhett," she declared. "I have no intention of staying here, if you're callous enough to leave me. I want to go home."
He studied her for a minute, still reclining back in that easy, languid pose. His voice was both kind and cruel when he answered.
"I don't mind if you visit your family while I'm away, Scarlett, and can make arrangements for you to travel a little, but I expect you to be waiting for me, on the docks, when I make anchor."
She bristled under his causal command. She'd never liked being told what to do. And if she had thought marriage with him would have come with any perks, it was a sense of autonomy. Hadn't he blathered on about it only yesterday?
"Whatever happened to my being free? Or have you already forgotten your fine speech about rescuing me? Not twenty minutes ago you boasted about it again. Has your memory gone to mush?"
"You are free, but freedom comes with a price. Everything does. And the price of your freedom is to welcome this lonely sailor back to land when his ship sails in."
She glowered at him. "Oh really? And do you want supper right there, too? Or would you prefer I just come in nothing but my shimmies?"
A flush blasted over her skin. She hadn't meant for that to come out.
Rhett chuckled and roved his teasing gaze over her body, leisurely stripping her down with his lusty eyes. "While I'm not usually opposed to sharing, I think I would prefer to keep you all for myself. You can come fully-clad. Just make sure your clothes can be easily removed once we're inside."
She frantically peeled the collar of her wrapper up against her neck, muttering incomprehensible curses under her breath. The blame directed at herself as much as at him.
"Oh, you're impossible!" she shouted.
"Don't play cat and mouse with me," he said, a lewd smile on his full lips. " Just as you shouldn't give useless threats, you shouldn't promise what you can't fulfill. Although, while we're on the topic, I'll give you my word that I'll be a good boy while I'm away, as long as you give your word that you'll be a good girl too."
In her flutter of embarrassment, it took her a moment for his promise to sink in. And when it had, her eyes popped and she blushed even redder. Her repulsion barley won over her horror.
"I…I can't believe you would accuse me—I would never think about breaking my wedding vows. How disgusting!"
"Oh, I'm sure your fidelity will be beyond reproach, as mine will be too, but I thought it might be a good idea to clarify what I would categorize as faithful and what I would categorize as unfaithful. You'll find I'm very generous. I'm going to be gone often and for long periods of time. Depending on how long our Lady the South can subsist on arrogance and ideals, this pattern could possibly continue for a duration of several years. Now I'll be risking my life for our shared coffers, and I think the least you could do is to fulfill your obligations."
A smooth cruelty crept into his voice and commanded her full attention. Rhett leaned forward, no sign of drowsiness or fatigue on his hard face. Her humiliation and outrage leaked out of her, compressed into wonder by the intensity of his words.
"I know your upbringing considers actual adultery a mortal sin, which for once makes me grateful there's a Pope in Rome, but don't forget that to lust after another man is as deadly a sin as sleeping with him. Flirt and dance as much as you like, Scarlett, I don't care. But if I come home and find you've fallen for another woodenheaded, worthless gentleman, I'll have Rebekkah chain you to a stone wall and lock you up every time I go away thereafter. And don't think you can fool me, either. I don't need to eavesdrop on you to know what goes on behind that deceptively innocent face of yours."
He reclined back into his chair, the weariness of the day settling back over his striking features. Again she attempted to see through to his thoughts, to sort out what those enigmatic flashes of eagerness meant, to wrest the significance from his impenetrable face. Again she failed.
A church bell rang out, tolling five distinct times. Dawn was inching its way into their hotel room, sunlight crawling over the furniture and carpet. Scarlett looked at the fire. The blaze had shriveled into mere embers. A chunk of charred log broke off, sending dusty cinders into the air. One of the pieces floated out of the hearth and landed on her nightgown. She picked it up with the tip of her finger and wondered what Rhett had meant about spinning gold out of the ashes.
She brushed the ash onto the floor, and noticed the forgotten food on the rug. Her hunger returned to her—but not for food. The desire radiated out from her core and onto her flesh. Blushing, she cast a sidelong glance at Rhett. And then she frowned. He had fallen asleep. Marriage was nothing like she had expected.
Note: I have to remember that just as Scarlett's different, so is Rhett. He's so much more flirtatious and open in the beginning, liberal with his compliments. He's also well-to-do but by no means rich. When we really get to know him in the book, he's made his fortune. He hasn't yet, not really. And Rhett is the one who teaches Scarlett to love money...well, him and her poverty.