As a refresher...Scarlett and Rhett married right after the BBQ at Twelve Oaks. It's the first month of the Civil War. They live in Charleston, but are planning on moving to New Orleans. Rhett's family is extremely dysfunctional, and Scarlett hates everyone but her husband, to whom she has whispered those three words, although he has not responded in kind. I hope there are some interested in reading this again. Still?
Scarlett clasped her hand around her neck, strangling a gasp. Silent, she watched as Kingsley Butler loped his way toward her, his gait so sure and smooth that she might have sworn he was some legless phantom. He spoke not a word, his strangely familiar eyes raking over her body with piercing exactness as he approached. Scarlett studied him, her astonishment giving way to something more like dread.
He stopped about a foot away. The afternoon light bled over his face, bleaching it sallow. He was the mirror image of Rhett, or Rhett was the mirror image of him—except his father's skin was almost chestnut instead of olive, and severe wrinkles gouged out his angular face. Scarlett took in the martial perfection of his clothing, the rampart rigidness of his bearing, a commanding stone of a man that reminded her forcefully of some severe, steep mountain. Despite the size of his stature, it was to his gaze that her eyes were drawn, inexorably and fearfully.
"You favor your peasant side, don't you my dear? I hardly detect even a whiff of your Robillard lineage in your face."
The insult cut that much deeper because it was so entirely unexpected. Her shock at the appearance of Rhett's father flared with the shock of his cruelty, combusting into a reckless, heady outrage. Trapped, tired—itching to shake off this whole cursed town—Scarlett's affront saved her from cow-towing to this meaner, older Rhett. And what did she care? Rhett was sweeping her away from this stuffy, self-righteous town, with golden promises of sweet, dripping foods she had never before tasted, gilded, draped halls where women danced, and an apartment adorned in lavish comforts overlooking the sea.
"I think you ought to take your leave, Mr. Butler," she said cuttingly. "My husband will not be pleased by your visit."
The same arching of those distinct brows, but lacking any hint of amusement or jest. "Do you imagine that I am fearful of my cast-off seed? Or do you think me ignorant of his paucity for honor and his proclivity for violence? My dear, but you are an unschooled and hopeless child."
Scarlett's offense faltered in the face of such disregard, and she relented by taking a step back, giving in to the warning clicking in her ears, but that was as far as she would retract. A swell in her abdomen rippled—a flutter of bubbles or butterflies, possibly that first stirring of an unborn life awoken by the surge of fear for her own life.
"I am not a child," she said, her courage found in her voice. "I am your son's wife, and I am carrying his child, your grandchild."
"The very notion that you would think I might be moved by sentimentality for what may be growing inside your womb proves what a child you are."
Rhett's father closed the gap between them, and menaced her with his arrogant gaze. The scent of leather, horses, and pine wafted from him, the smell jarringly comforting. A knot sickened Scarlett's stomach as her mind was painfully drawn to the time she had drunk a bottle of her mother's medicinal berry tonic, the flavor familiar and known, only to discover in retching it up that it had been a serum for dying clothes. Nauseated, she almost wished she had waited at her aunt's house! She wound her arms around her body, shielding her belly. Somehow she had to fight this stranger off; somehow she had to force him to go away. For now, it had to be enough that she was standing her ground, while he stripped her down with his unfeeling eyes inches from her body.
"Although on closer inspection, there is something remarkably and primaly feline about you. Are you the cat in Milton's poem? Come to instruct the hosts of men?"
"If you only came to gawk at me and speak rudely to me," she clipped, "then you must be done by now, and have no further cause to disrupt my peace. Please, just leave."
To her surprise, he stepped away and strode confidently back to the chair which he had exited on her entrance. His long leg swung gracefully in the air as he crossed it over his thigh. In another bewildering gesture of politeness, he motioned for her to join him in the chair opposite his.
Cautiously, Scarlett complied. Confusion and a need to appear unaffected by his gentle cruelty compelled her feet forward, even as that serpentine disgust wriggled within her. Why had he come? Why wouldn't leave? The weight of his gaze was on her while she sat down and smoothed her skirts. Wary, she turned her face toward him. Biting her tongue this hard may spurt blood, but she would not be the first to speak.
"The rumors of your spirit have done you an injustice; they have not conveyed the allure of your vivacity, nor adequately praised the attraction of your peculiar joie de vie."
The bizarre compliment, spoken in a laconic, matter-of-fact drawl, unsettled Scarlett, until he continued: "I can see what drew him to you, however little I understand why a child was drawn to him." He pursed those full lips. "Perhaps he learned to quash some of his worst impulses and marry in an attempt to domesticate, or perhaps your peasant father threatened him for compromising you, and being earthy and unrefined, he responded to a kindred spirit. Who knows? It could be as simple as his desire to bed you for however long that lush bloom on your cheek endures—and knowing him, discarding you without a backward glance, when it has faded."
Each of these pleasantly-spoken, horrifying suppositions stabbed Scarlett with fresh pain and dismay. For a moment, she sat, frozen, worries and questions tearing through her mind, ripping at her heart. They were precisely her own fears about Rhett's maddeningly enigmatic reasons for marrying her. What sort of a man tells his wife that he believes her when she confesses her love to him? Scarlett now had some inkling of an answer. It was the sort of man who came from the mild monster beside her. The sort of man whose kin could speak so blithely about the most horrible things.
Rage caught up with her trepidation—a rage riding on the waves of her womb's volatile emotions. No, she would not sit here another minute. She stood, cradling her womb as if the unborn child were more than a nuisance or an unknowable creature leeching her of strength and shape.
"This is my room and I will not be spoken to like that—not by you, not by anyone. I don't care what sort of low-down plan you have in your head or what made you into such an ill-bred coward, who shows his face to a woman but not to his son. At least your son has the decency not to pretend that he is a gentleman."
Her breasts heaved with hot indignation, matching the heat thickening the air. Kingsley Butler slowly rose from the chair, his hateful, familiar face a mask of false gentility.
"Ad victor spolia. I am not your enemy, Scarlett," he said, uttering her name for the first with brutal intimacy.
"You are certainly not my friend." Perhaps she could not quote literature or make biting jabs, but she at least understood that this much was true.
Those black eyes glanced down at the way she was holding her swelling belly. "I do pity you, though, as you are clearly laboring under the delusion that your bastard is my bastard's first brat."
If he had slapped her, it would have stung less. That sick sensation congealed as an obstinate tangle in her gut. There was no rhyme to this man, no measure to his mood, no intuiting his intentions. He was a devil, pure and simple. Startled, she actually hesitated back a step, the flank of her thigh digging into her chair. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she managed to whisper.
"Does Rhett send you out to fight not only your own battles, but his as well, you pretty kitten?"
A shaky retort was rendered unnecessary when at that moment, the door opened. The light from the hallway silhouetted the blessed interrupter and Scarlett, fingers flying to her dry lips, actually laughed at the entrance of an ally. Rebekkah's wise gaze read the situation in a breathless instant, and she boldly walked to Scarlett's side, her skirts brushing across Kingsley Butler's pristine shoes.
"Miz Scarlett," she said, turning her strong, brown face to her, "I believe Mista' Rhett gonna want you nice and clean fo' this ev'ning. He done planned somethin' right sweet befor' we-all head to New 'Leans."
Scarlett nodded, unsure of what to do next to remove Rhett's father from her hotel room. Her eyes must have conveyed her question, because without skipping a step, Rebekkah faced the man that Scarlett dully and suddenly realized was the woman's father—a strange yet undeniable certainty that left a new hollow feeling in Scarlett's young, impressionable soul.
The resemblance between the two persons before her was even greater than Rhett's commonalities with his father. Rebekkah and Kingsley's complexions matched perfectly, their chestnut skin tones an identical blend of creamy, polished wood. It struck her then, as if it was a stone coming at her from a great height, that the only thing separating Rebekkah and her father from the same fate was some invisible brand. The realization chilled Scarlett, chilled her as it drilled through her knotted insides, raising questions she was too bewildered to understand how to ask, too ignorant to know how to even articulate.
"Mista' Kingsley," his unacknowledged daughter said, "I got to git Miz' Scarlett here freshened up, as quick as I is able."
His cold eyes grazed Rebekkah with chilly disinterest. "Rockwell's children are unmanageable without their mammy; you will return to your place in his home while he fights for South Carolina, for God, and for our land." Kingsley spoke this in a voice that brokered compliance. When he had finished, he bowed perfunctorily but perfectly to Scarlett, and scooping up his hat on a nearby table, walked to the door. The air was whooshing out of Scarlett's lungs; her knees trembled to break down, the spit and spunk seeping out of her blood as water from a cracked well.
"I will remain with Miz' Scarlett an' Mista' Rhett."
Stunned, Scarlett swiveled her eyes to the proud, immobile woman beside her. Rebekkah's expression showed no hint of fear or mark of hesitation. Unblinking and unbowed, she stared into the glistening black eyes of the man at the threshold, the man a foot from the door, the man finally on the verge of leaving them in peace. What had the fool been thinking? Of course she wouldn't go to tend Rockwell's annoying children. Why did she have to speak up now? It was as if she wanted to raise his hackles.
Pragmatic to the core; self-preservation a quality unhinged in her, she could not fathom the type of courage, borne of a rage and resentment unknown and unfelt during Scarlett's sixteen, sheltered years, that compelled Rebekkah to open her mouth at this time, to brook possible pain and inevitable punishment for the sake of exercising her free will in the tiny sphere in which she could move.
In a flash, Kingsley enacted his vengeance, picking up a crystal paperweight from the desk beside the door and striking it through the air, the trinket cutting Rebekkah in the cheek and shattering onto the floor. Scarlett had shielded her head as the improvised weapon had sliced toward her, but her companion had remained rooted to her spot, as if negligent of the danger or blind to the violence. Confused yet enraged, Scarlett recovered quickly, her instincts taking command. Without thought or intent, she grabbed the first object her hand could find—a poker from beside the grate—and awkwardly lanced it at Rhett's father. Fury had emboldened her to recklessness, and Kingsley swatted down the wobbling skewer with hardly any effort.
"I shall see myself out," he said in that deceptively mild accent, before bowing again, and taking his departure.
Scarlett's eyes trembled toward Rebekkah, and then trembled back to the shut door. Neither woman spoke a word, for a hushed, heavy minute. The blood on Rebekkah's cheek oozed down her brown skin in thick droplets of crimson, and wide-eyed, Scarlett watched the wizened hand dab at the wound with a handkerchief, her movements unseen but precise, as if this was as common as wiping sweat from the brow. Rhett's father had come and gone as a wraith in the night, leaving nothing but the shells of his victims and the skins of his prey. Before she knew what she was about, Scarlett slinked down into the chair, and clawing her fingers over her face, began to weep.
She wouldn't admit it to Rebekkah, could hardly admit it to herself, that it was something more than the astounding nature of the aggression, something other than the barbed asides, that drew her to tears. It was the wish to be free of this place, to be delivered from this hellish mess of people. Even Rebekkah's heavy-handed care, or Rhett's recent kind but aloof manners loomed before her as unshakable forces, seeking to fell her to the floor—as everything that Rhett's father, from his words to his deeds, had attempted to achieve. Had anything he said been true? Especially those awful reflections on why Rhett had married her? Did Rhett have children scattered up and down the coasts? Would she cross paths with little black-haired boys and obsidian-eyed girls and see her husband in their urchin faces? Was this why Rhett no longer wanted to touch her? Because he had a history of bedding and impregnating and abandoning?
Scarlett dug her nails into her face. She couldn't think about this. She refused to let the scathing lies of that man flay that delicate layer of goodwill and trust growing in her marriage since Rhett had promised to take her away. Oh, but would a new state, a new city be enough? Tara and her mother never seemed so near and dear to her heart, nor far from her reach.
"You'll be better now that you know what you got comin' for you, Miz Scarlett."
Through the cage of her fingers, she viewed Rebekkah. The cut on her brown cheek had clotted; she appeared as calm as a willow on a muggy day. None of this was going to be better. Rhett's family loathed her, and his father cared for nothing. "What—know what is coming for me? Why would Kingsley Butler want to come for me? What have I ever done to deserve this? To deserve all you horrible Butlers?"
"Deserving doesn't have nothing to do with nothing. This is about living, and being glad to be living. Hard times and sweet times, and all the times in between."
"How can I think about any other times? What else should I know about this family?" She stopped short of asking what else should she know about Rhett. How could she have fallen in love with him? How had she been so foolhardy to throw her heart away on a man whose origins and kin were so totally unknown to her, and alien to her upon introduction?
Rebekkah was already busy dusting away the shards of the destroyed paperweight, not bothering to pause or look up as she finally answered Scarlett's question. "They is a family, what else you need to know? Now we best be hurrying to get you all fixed up for Mista' Rhett."
"And what if I don't want to go?" Scarlett asked mulishly.
"I 'spect you will, either way, I gonna get you ready."
"Ready for what? For where?"
"For Mista' Rhett. For your husband."
Husband. The word took on a new significance to her. That raw vitality of that pirate face added to the certainty. "He'll kill him for what he said to me," Scarlett vowed suddenly, a scalding bite to her voice. "Just you wait, Rebekkah. He'll kill him."
Swiftly, Rebekkah dropped the duster in her hand and grabbed Scarlett by the shoulders, her grip sharp and surprising. Scarlett gasped and tried to shove the woman away. "You can't say nothin' to Mista' Rhett until we in New 'Leans," she said urgently.
"Take your hands off me," Scarlett ordered, twisting and writhing unsuccessfully. "Take your hands off me now!"
Rebekkah nodded and stepped back, her breathing heavy, sweat beading as gems across her brow. "You got to promise me, Miz Scarlett. I was planning' on telling it to you sweet while doin' your hair but you got that blaze in your ungodly eyes. You cannot confide this thing to Mista' Rhett, not until we as far from Carolina as Georgia."
"I will do no such thing! I'm not going to let that nasty bully trample all over me and my marriage and call me a child and my child a, a— I simply will not allow it!" Even to Scarlett's own ears, her voice had rang out shrilly and her threats hollowly.
Rebekkah stared down at her in imperial unconcern, the anxiety of her tone abated or concealed. "You will keep your mouth shut on this matter 'til we gone from here. It only one day you got to keep this thing from Mista' Rhett. One day Miz Scarlett."
"Why?" Scarlett asked, with an unusual shrewdness. "Why don't you want Rhett to know while he can do something about it?"
"Because I don't 'spect you wanna be a widow carrying a child at sixteen Miz' Scarlett."
The green eyes studied the implacable onyx eyes, seeing nothing but their own stubbornness shining back. "Fine," Scarlett huffed. "Fine. I suppose it won't be so terrible to wait until tomorrow to tell Rhett, especially as he seems to have planned something for our farewell."
"Nice to know you can be persuaded by good sense, least sometimes, Miz Scarlett. Least some very rare sometimes."
That was all the reply she was to expect. Rebekkah's lips remained closed on this topic, her observations as silent on this subject as she was on every other subject, but what Scarlett should wear for this special thing Rhett had planned. Glum as she felt, Scarlett managed to remain as equally silent as Rebekkah while she readied for the evening, partially from her dismay at the dress which Rebekkah informed her she must wear. The simple, pale blue cotton frock, devoid of all finery and frills, the petticoats so slender, resembled an outfit she had worn in her girlhood days, prior to coming out. Scarlett was almost scandalized by the form-fitting lines and minimal layers of the child-like gown.
As Rebekkah styled her hair, and she warmed the mirror with her pretty reflection, some of the frost and fear from the afternoon melted away. Never one to fuss over the complexities of life, even her own life, Scarlett began to remove herself from the entanglement of Rhett's wretched family. Fiddle-dee-dee! Rhett hated his family, and for good reason. Maybe he was something of a mercurial and aggravating creature, maybe he shared something more sinister with his kin than mere looks, but he was taking her away. Maybe in their new abode, far afield of the soupy, brine of Charleston, her hopes for a brighter future were not so misplaced. This suffocating mix of people and climate and culture, all piled and stewed together, was the reason, amongst so many other reasons, why Charleston would never be her home. Tara would always be her home.
This truth settled upon her as easily and unmistakably as a silk shawl settles over bare shoulders, draping its satiny fineness to the shape of the wearer, only this was a truth that no wind or storm would unfurl. The acceptance cheered Scarlett as little else could have done, and unbeknownst to her, the woman behind her had watched in a kind of detached satisfaction.
"Good Miz' Scarlett," Rebekkah said, finishing the raven braided bun with a final twist, "Now I won' worry that you gonna faint when we walk to the docks to meet Mista' Rhett."
Scarlett raised her dark brows at the mirror image of Rebekkah, curiosity catching her tongue as it tickled her mind.
~ABS~
An hour, a much too meager supper, and a brisk walk later, Scarlett sat in a shaded bench and waited at the docks for Rhett, perspiring from more than mere heat. An excitement had begun to boil in her blood, a sense of adventure tempting her on the twilight horizon. This morning's dreariness and this afternoon's dread temporarily forgot; the blessing of her youth and privilege to tuck away disturbances of her peace as one might cupboard unappetizing food. As soon as his hulking shadow wavered in the sinking sun's rays, Rebekkah departed into the shadow of dusk and alone, Scarlett watched her husband approach.
There was a jaunty freedom to his stride, a thrill of something unfettered in his style. He wore again the plain, white clothes of a shipmate, with the first several shirt buttons undone and a red scarf tied as a belt around his waist. "Why, he looks just like a character from that painting hanging in the Twelve Oaks library, the one with all those rainbow colors and giant ships!" she mused to herself, as glad as she had been gloomy. Smiling, she stood up and clapped her hands under her chin. Rhett stopped in front of her, a rare grin of unchecked delight on his swarthy face.
"Oh Rhett!" she said, not caring to keep her enthusiasm hidden behind useless, good manners. "Are you taking me onto your ship?"
"While I'm not a superstitious man, most sailors are, and unless I want a mutiny, I will respect their irrational fears, in the same way I do with your inconsistent paupish ones."
Confusion crumpled her anticipation, along with a sinking disappointment. "My what? Their what? You aren't taking me onto your ship?"
Those eye brows wagged up, his mouth turned down. The slant of his strident features in this particular expression was becoming something of a comfort to her, like a well-worn pair of slippers or the scent of lemon verbena. His drawling reply of "No," however, was not the same balm to her spirits.
Scowling she looked down at her ridiculous, unflattering outfit. "Then why am I in this hideous dress? Why did Rebekkah drag me across town after the miserable day I had?"
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Oh! She didn't want to cry now, to despair like some child who had lost a favorite toy. Child, he had called her, over and over and over, as if it was a curse word, a blaspheme. Her foot stomped, lifting the thin veil which led from her blissful resilience to the pit of morose recollections. The unhappy thought of the word child brought back to mind all the terrible words Kingsley Butler had dispassionately flung at her, the vicious hurling of the paperweight that had cracked the cheek of Rebekkah and forced Scarlett to shudder with her arms above her head.
Through the gloss of her angry tears she perceived the closer approach of her husband, his warmth matching the warmth of the salty humidity. No one else lurked on the docks, not at this hour, not with the war ravaging some nether field and some nearby sea, not in this sticky swelter. The leaves of the tree hanging over them rustled in a flailing breeze. Rhett turned the other side of his mouth down and cupped her chin. His voice was soft as it was kind, granting Scarlett's sorrow permission to overwhelm her.
"Did your aunt tell you some other dark secret dredged from your family coffers?" he asked. "Has she shared some new story meant to frighten you about your mother?"
"My family, Rhett?" she blubbered, all the pep leaking out from her, that assurance she had given Rebekkah of her silence an inconsequential remark. Truthfully, she had not promised; she had only said "fine." But nothing was fine, and in the thoughtless frankness of a pregnant, young wife, she opened up the cause of her sadness to the only soul who might care to listen—her husband. "My family has nothing to do with this! First your dreadful sister accosts me and pesters me about her letter to that calf-faced Charles Hamilton, and then who do I find sitting in my hotel room, like he's some king holding court? Your father!"
Expecting violence or vitriol, the sudden gentle strength of Rhett's arms as they wrapped around her, melted whatever steel lingered within her core. "Tell me what he said and did to you, honey," he said, his breath hot against her scalp, and sighing deeper into his hold—into the hold of this strong, strange man who had not touched her in this way in weeks—she revealed all, including Rebekkah's part and the turbulent end, her words tumbling out one over the other, tumbling with her tears and her fears and her hopes and her shames, those creeping out of her chapped, damp lips at the very last.
"You haven't any other sweethearts, do you? You don't have any other children?" Scarlett nuzzled her face into his shoulder, unable to meet him in the eye. Rhett stroked her hair for a long minute, and waiting, she listened to the steady rhythm of his pulse. Sore of heart and mind, she leaned into the caresses, wanting nothing more than to be petted and loved.
"You are the only woman in my life now, Scarlett, but I will not lie to you—I may have children from former affairs, but if I do, they remain unknown to me, and I to them."
Something almost like regret landed coldly in her heart. She didn't know what she had been expecting, but now all she wanted was to run away. Perhaps Rhett sensed her withdrawal, because he pulled back then, forcing her to meet his eye. The sun blinked as a tangerine sliver behind them on the city skyline, the narrow light undulating on the waves before them as checkered chiffon, the pattern dim but similar on Rhett's face.
"Not exactly the carefree evening I had expected, but nothing is ever as expected with you."
"What do you mean?" Scarlett sniffled, her body emptied of emotion after the draining day and minutes of weeping confession.
Rhett slid his rakish eyes up and down her body. "I disagree that your dress is hideous. But regardless, it is the least cumbersome ensemble for a woman about to sail at night."
Immediately a revival of excitement filled that blankness inside Scarlett. "You're taking me sailing? Oh! How perfect! Thank you!" she chimed, an authentic expression of gratitude after so much depression, her selfish heart always so keen for presents and pampering and novel adventures.
"Don't thank me yet," he said with a grin. "You don't know what kind of sea legs you have."
Rhett yanked her by the arm and led her to a "darling, little sail boat," that was docked between two massive sloops. After some rambling directives from Rhett, and an assist from him, his large hands easily lifting her around the waist and setting her into the hull, they pushed off from the land, raised the sail, and caught a pleasant gust of wind.
Rhett pointed out the vague landmarks to her, his voice rising above the sea breeze, as her laughter braided with the wind and waves. They kept to the shallow waters, and Rhett deftly curved around the many sandbars and inlets. Scarlett had never known such freedom or fun; the liberating joy healed her wounds and made her lively spirits soar. Her tight bun unraveled, her raven locks tousling down her shoulders. She turned to Rhett with a smile on her face that brimmed with so much frightening vitality, it broke something inside her husband that she was too young and lusty and vain to see.
The sun had vanished and the moon was rising, the stars appearing in the deep blue sky. Rhett maneuvered the sails, and after a quick tilt and a bob, Scarlett realized they had hit land. The small mast was lowered, and the plunk of an anchor splashed into the water. She peered into the dimness, but only dimness peered back. There were no street lamps or carriages or roads or buildings. The blacker outline of trees towered against the navy of night and the scent of Cyprus and citrus blossoms textured the sea air. She had no clue where Rhett had taken her.
Without a word, he hopped out of the boat and picked her up, cradling her against his chest. A faint scream had escaped her throat at his stealthy advance, but lulled by his rocking carry and the mystery of this detour, she fell quiet in his arms. The heat of summer cooled as they entered the cover of trees; the buzz and burbling of unseen insects and nocturnal animals loudened. Scarlett was finally about to ask where they were, when Rhett preempted her with the answer.
"This is a small island that my family owns, not far from where I grew up. Normally the tide and mosquitoes make it only bearable to visit during the winter months, but during summer at night, if you are daring enough, the tide recedes enough to break into the shore."
"What about the mosquitos?" Scarlett asked, slapping at her hand as a reflex more than a need.
"Don't tell me the vase-throwing maiden and poker-lancing bride is scared of a little biting?"
A rumble in his chest vibrated through Scarlett, and she blushed, though she couldn't exactly say why. Unceremoniously, Rhett dropped her down, but steadied her before she tripped onto the mossy ground. Her vision was adjusting to the low light and she perceived the shape of a small structure beside her, sensing its closeness by touch as much as sight.
The scratch of a match against a flint sounded in the humming ambience. A flickering glow shivered over Rhett's face briefly, before he lit the wick to a kerosene lamp and its brighter light expanded. Scarlett could now confirm that a small cabin squatted next to her, a place she would only ever remember for the shelter it provided from the hordes of bugs. Quickly Rhett ushered her into the tiny house and shut the door behind them.
Rhett circled the single room lighting more lanterns, as Scarlett surveyed the decor. There was one four-poster bed, an unused but clean grate, a couple wooden rocking chairs, a sturdy table, and a few other items of furniture—all neat, tidy, and well-preserved. Refreshingly, the cabin air was cooler than the weather outside—and almost as fragrant. Something nudged Scarlett that Rhett had been here recently—perhaps as recently as last night. Her husband flashed a sidelong glance at her then, winking as he passed in front of her. He asked if she cared for a drink, and she informed him that she very much did. For the next minute, he rummaged in a pantry.
Scarlett noticed a rectangular shape on the table and walked over to examine it. The puzzle had almost been completed. She could never fathom why anyone would want to waste their time putting together a picture broken into a million little, jagged pieces. If she liked the picture, she would just buy the thing, whole and uncut.
"Not a lover of puzzles, my pet?" Scarlett's stomach somersaulted as Rhett's hot breath danced across her neck, and she whipped around. His black eyes wavered as a dark sea under a full moon in the lanterns' light. There were things he wanted from her, and things she wanted to give him. He held a glass of water out to her. Slowly, she took it.
"I apologize for startling you, Mrs. Butler," he said, downing his own glass.
"Thank you," Scarlett said unthinkingly, drowning her newly parched throat with the sweet liquid, her heart racing with a fevered rush. Still he watched her with those mysterious eyes.
"I thought coming here to a favored childhood haunt of mine would be a proper adieu to Charleston, a way for you to appreciate the better part of its allure. The seas are not safe right now, but I know these inlets better than I know even your body—although perhaps after a reminder tonight, that will no longer be the case."
There had been a timbre added to his voice at the mention of her body, that had bled her cheeks crimson with timid desire. It had made the intensity of his gaze ratchet by degrees. He plucked the glass from her hand and set both cups on the table.
"I know but do not care that you lack an understanding of my behavior, Scarlett. I've had my reasons for keeping you at arm's length these past weeks—and rest assured, my reserve has not come easily. It has been hard fought." He lifted his hand to her cheek and she blushed deeper. "Tonight, I no longer give a damn."
She didn't know what that meant, but Rhett stole her confused wonder away in an instant. He stole everything away. As his mouth touched hers, he erased her shyness, erased her hurt over his neglect, erased her woes about his family.
This was almost as new as the first time—a new place, a new bed, a new body. Not that they made it to the bed right away. Rhett had her in his arms, in his warm embrace, up against the table, the puzzle pieces clattering to the floor, glasses smashing into the rug. Within moments, the clothing was shredded beside the other detritus from the table. Rhett's powerful hands were in her unruly hair, and his aching lips heated her soft skin.
Modesty forgot, she cleaved to him, responding to his energy, remembering the texture and temperature and taste of his ardor. Scarlett's moans rose as if carried on the wind, her passion simmering with the aroma of the tropical forest beyond the cabin doors. He was kissing her, tugging gently at her lips, stroking her tongue with his tongue. His hard body pressed into hers, as her satin, floral flesh folded into him. Rhett moved above her, shooting strips of pleasure up her spine, flashes of heat in her blood. She opened herself up to him, driving all cares away. He'd never made love the way he was tonight—enveloping, endless, eyes wide open. And that terrified Scarlett even as it thrilled her. He demanded everything of her. Her body and heart and mind. "Look at me, Scarlett," he commanded at the brink of their passion.
And over and over again, on the table, on the floor, in the bed, she did—those green eyes seeking his black gaze. The abandonment of both made complete.
~ABS~
Before Scarlett lifted her eyelids, she promised herself that she would not say the words, those words that had flown to the tip of her tongue at each crashing climax of their love-making. The words she had swallowed down with a bitter need. She wanted to believe Rhett loved her, that he had never known a night like last night. But what if he had? Scarlett had never been second fiddler to any of her beaux, and her vanity rankled that she should be the dozenth fiddler to her husband, but beyond vanity, beyond even pride, lurked the deeply buried fragility of her heart. The cad could crush it if he cared to bother. For that reason, the truth of her love for Rhett would not be shared by her again, until he first confessed his love for her.
Determined of will, she fluttered her eyes open. The glare of morning streamed into the clouded window of the cabin, and with a jolt, she sat up. They were supposed to leave this godforsaken town today! Shifting around to shake Rhett awake, she experienced a far worse and strickening jolt, Rhett wasn't in the bed. Clutching the sheet to her breast and wrapping it around her as a cloak, she hurried to the cabin door. But before she could tear it open, she heard the voices of two women.
"He said he left her in the smallest cabin on the east side. It is this one, trust me."
"You the only Butler I can trust, Miz' Eleanor. You know that."
Scarlett retreated from the door, and darted her eyes around the room, desperate for an escape. There was none. Surrendering to the humiliation was not an option. With feigned elegance, she gathered the sheets around her and straightened her spine. The door swung open. Eleanor Butler and Rebekkah stood at the threshold, their expressions as grim as death. Neither impressed nor embarrassed by her disheveled nakedness.
Rebekkah spoke first, that welt upon her cheek shimmering in the dappled sunlight. "I told you Miz Scarlett. I told you to keep your mouth shut, but you didn't listen. You just didn't listen."
Now Scarlett wanted to speak. Now she needed to ask, but her tongue wouldn't work. The words wouldn't come, and the question lay fallow in her throat, stuck beside the declaration she now wished she had repeated, over and over and over again.
~ABS~
Note—Fiddle-dee-dee as Scarlett may say. That was hard to write. I'm rusty. I hope it's not too clunky.
Fair warning, I'm going to get a little serious and possibly soap-boxy here. Skip if you wish—I'm trying to catch up on some writing during this unique time in our society, pandemics and protests and politics everywhere, and I wanted to re-visit this story, because of where I had always planned on taking it. Some of the many complaints against the value of the novel's historicity is the lack of miscegenation, or lack of people of mixed racial heritage, the glossed over harsh realities of slavery, and the implicit and explicit racism. From the off, I wanted to try and address some of those issues. Hence Rebekkah. I knew if I began in the antebellum portion of the story, I would need to touch on these topics in some way. Personifying it makes for more potent storytelling, I think. There are many conflicting emotions I have when considering my favorite novel. I don't want to see it relegated to the untouchable annals of history, a banned book for all intents and purposes. Nor do I want the racist tropes Mitchell very frequently inserted into the text propagated.
Maybe I'll post some more of my thoughts on my profile. And sorry if I come across as preachy, or even political. To me this is about loving something while acknowledging all its faults. Because I do love the novel, for so many reasons, the rich, inviting language, the easy storytelling, the doomed love saga, but most of all, for Scarlett herself. I met her in a time in my life when my own tiny world was falling to pieces, and her gumption and grit and sheer, selfish determination sang to my soul in a way no other character has. She is not an antebellum heroine. She is in every way a modern heroine—mirroring Mitchell's own time, in the same way as Mitchell's prejudices are reflected in her work. Scarlett is a survivor against all odds and I think her story has value for all generations, including mine. (Full disclosure, I'm a Millennial.)
And it is for Scarlett that I write my overwrought and angst-ridden what-ifs, because I want her to get the last thing she lost after she had lost so much, and the last thing she wanted. Rhett's love. And frankly, I don't give a damn what he thinks about it.