Somewhere a clock chimed the hour, and the busy hum of a house in motion buzzed all around, these simple comforts of a home at peace, which echoed in Scarlett's ears as cannon fire. Two silent grooms with skilled, deft hands took the bonnet and gloves from Eleanor's dangling grasp then, another well-timed maid escorted them into a chilled, luxurious day parlor of velvet blue drapes and deep mahogany. The clock finished its tolls, at the same moment as the maid shut the door, as if everything accomplished in this place functioned on a timer of pins and wheels.

With the whoosh of the door, Scarlett spoke, her voice harried. "What do you mean I'm here to speak to your husband, for the sake of mine? I thought you were trying to keep me from your husband."

"No, I was trying to prepare you for war with him. A war you must fight alone—to my sorrow."

"War? What do you mean, war? There's already a war. It's happening right now somewhere in Virginia."

"There are as many faces of war as sands in the sea."

Oh not this tomfoolery! Scarlett thought, with a dismissive quiver of her eyes. The parlor doors reopened, at the precise moment she reopened her mouth, and it was left hanging in that indelicate oval as Kingsley Butler strode into the room, dressed in tailored, silk perfection, but for his right arm crooked in a sling.

He spoke not a word of greeting, but walked directly to his wife, kissing her on the cheek, his lips never grazing her skin.

"Mrs. Butler," he drawled, "how kind of you to show Scarlett around the fields this morning. I imagine you are quite fatigued by the exercise. Do not fret over keeping our guest entertained. I am sure she will graciously accept the demotion of my company over the greater privilege of yours."

Eleanor did not blink or buckle, her voice as sweet as a brook's babble in her reply. "As usual, Mr. Butler, you have anticipated my need for repose. I shall gladly make use of your thoughtfulness and retire to my chambers." Immediately she swept around to Scarlett, touching her cheek against her palm as she had in the grove, her blue eyes finally communicating the fear which caked Scarlett's heart and coated in her blood. "Remember, my dear, what we discussed. I look forward to welcoming you again to our home."

In a rustle of skirts, Rhett's mother was gone, abandoning Scarlett to the unpredictable moods of Kingsley Butler. Fear threatened to be her undoing; fear of a palatable and permanent texture, and with that fear leadening her blood, running it chill as viscous metal, she caught the reflection of her pale, scared face in a hanging mirror. It was such a pathetic, mealy expression, nothing at all like herself. The lonesome image roused something inside her. Fear be damned! If it would have to be this way, it would have to be.

Scarlett fixed her gaze at the man leaning against the fireplace ledge watching her, and coolly asked, "Do I need to request a shield, Mr. Butler, or can I trust you not to hurl things at my head?"

A small smile wavered on his full lips. "Why do you think I'm standing beside the grate, my dear? I was about to ask if you planned on lancing any more pokers after me. If you swear to be on your best behavior; I swear that I will be on mine."

His tone was far friendlier than at any point during yesterday's interaction, almost flirtatious. If she could suspend the memory of his former cruelty, and forget the position of his relationship to her, she may yet come out of this unscathed, and if she managed that improbability, she might be able to save Rhett from whatever pit he'd fallen into on his father's property. Damn Rhett! Where was he? She tempered the thought with some difficulty, and focused on what must be done to get the answer to that nagging question. In a well-worn flutter of her young features, her eyes slanted and a dimple flickered on her cheek. Kingsley was a beau, and she was a belle, a huntress by choice, charm, and inclination.

"How you do run on, Mr. Butler," she said. "I dare not make any promises which I cannot guarantee to keep. You'll have me eating my words before they've had time to cool."

"Bad form, Scarlett," Rhett's father said briskly. "If I wanted to be simpered to like a school boy, I would speak to any number of unmarried girls. Are you going to force me into throwing things at you again?"

There, for the third or fourth time, was a series of words which if spoken by someone else, would have soothed and not curdled her blood. On this occasion, it was Rhett's sardonic turns of phrases she heard in the speech, his patterns and wit, but devoid of the playfulness and mirth. The contrast brought her up, and instead of slanting, her eyes sparked.

"I would not put it past you to do anything as mean as using my body as a firing target, though it is carrying your grandchild, as you made it adequately clear that you have as poor of a heart as you do aim."

"My heart Scarlett? Your husband took that from me years ago, and as for my aim—I am left to deduce that you believe I missed the mark on my departure from your hotel room. I did not. My aim was much surer, though not half as satisfying, as yours."

She scowled at Rhett's father—what did he mean her husband had taken his heart? His last comment made as little sense to her, though, as his first. How had her failed attempt to impale him given him satisfaction? He stared at her, his eyes as stony as her mood was simmering.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she said.

"I'm sure you don't know what I mean, or indeed will know what I mean most of this interview. Allow me to enlighten you on this one point, however. It has been years since someone has surprised me. You surprised me—throwing that poker at me landed on the mark."

"If only that were true, you'd have a bandage around your head in addition to the one around your arm."

His black eyes glided down to the sling encasing his arm. "Yes, your husband did get more of a jump on me than you did."

"Pity he didn't aim for the head then," she said with a brutality to match his own.

To her surprise, her counterpart smiled at her, neither warmly nor coldly, but broadly. "Now," he purred as he shifted away from the grate and approached her, "isn't that better, Scarlett? To speak your truth?"

"Not if it doesn't get me anything," she wisely admitted. "What about you, Mr. Butler? Does it feel better to speak your truth?"

"I live by a strict code of conduct, Scarlett. Truth is irrelevant to honor."

"Aren't they the same thing?"

"Only to fools. My piety is not for myself, but for those around me. My god and goddess is my way of life. It is the only thing that matters, much more than blood or Bibles. I know how your husband views me, his eyes when turned toward me are still the narrow gaze of a troubled and undisciplined boy, who to this day, values honesty in everyone but himself."

Scarlett couldn't argue against that bland observation; it possessed all the hallmarks of truth which his other commentary had not. Rhett always called her on the tiniest fibs, but he never repaid the courtesy. Following her silent agreement, the dark eyes dipped downward, lingering on her pert bosom, the look neither lost on Scarlett, nor appreciated by her.

"That dress is familiar to me, reminding me of simpler times," Kingsley mused, showing her the courtesy of meeting her eye again. "Did Mrs. Butler give that to you as a gift?"

"She lent it to me, yes," Scarlett said carefully.

"Why?" he asked, sharpening his gaze. "What persuaded my wife to give up a dress she has treasured for longer than you have been alive?"

"She showed me a kindness, as my dress was ruined—by the sea," she added as a finishing thought.

"I am not interested in your lies."

The word "interested" acted as a heady glass of wine to her, bringing to mind her conversation in the grove and making her tipsy with frankness. "What about me are you interested in, Mr. Butler?"

His deep gaze disrobed her, not as a lover, but as a doctor or a machinist might. After his clinical examination, he touched her face, in the same fashion, but lacking all of the fondness, of his wife's caress. "So brave. So belligerent. So misinformed." He pinched her cheek then, with a tender hurt that she failed to disguise, and dropped his hand.

"Mrs. Butler, as you well know, gave you that enchanting dress because your own gown was ripped to tatters on my cabin floor." From top to toes, Scarlett's flesh bled a deep, punishing puce, but if Kingsley Butler noticed her discomfort, he did not heed its warning. "And as for my interest in you, I told you. For now, I want your truth."

"My truth?" Scarlett swallowed thickly. Oh why couldn't she have married a nice, polite man with a nice, polite family? She could have married Charles Hamilton and been rich and happy and in control. Instead of all this.

Her father-in-law leaned further down toward her, as her superficial regrets panned across her flushed face, his eyes slivered and his mouth tight. "Do you love my son?" he asked. "And do not lie. It will only annoy me, rattle you, and delay the fulfillment of your goal in standing here, which, without being told, I am certain, is to plead for clemency for your husband. If you cherish any hope of that coming to fruition, speak."

His command issued as it would to a dog, and she barely bit down on the saucy speech spewing out of her mouth, denouncing him for treating her like one of his hounds. Swallowing the words away, she set an easier expression on her face. What harm was there in answering questions?

"Yes, I love my husband," she said simply.

"Did you when you married him?"

"No."

"Did he know this?"

"Yes."

Kingsley hummed a note of surprise, slowing the rapidity of his interview. "Did he compromise you, after all then?"

Scarlett's nostrils flared with disgust. "He assisted me with a sprained ankle, that is all."

"Why did he ask you to marry him?"

"You'll have to ask him."

"I'm asking you. You must have some idea."

"For spite. For a laugh. For a change." She shrugged at each guess.

"And does he know you love him now?"

"Yes," she said tersely. This line of questioning was as inappropriate as it was inconsequential. What was he playing at? Scarlett knew nothing, only that it was a game she never cared to play again.

"Has he reciprocated your declaration?"

"No."

"And yet, you give yourself to him as if you were one of his many whores. Have you no respect for the sacred title of wife?"

Whatever paleness had remained on her skin burst a bright red of pure mortification. If he had scalded her with boiling oil she would have been less pinkly raw, less offended, and above all offended. Saving Rhett be damned! What rescue did he require at her hands anyway? What was this terrible fate no one had the gall to tell to her?

"I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your mouth! I am a lady!" She whipped away from his ungentlemanly closeness, and in contradiction to her own thoughts, spat next, "Now take me to Rhett at once, or he will come for me and finish the job he began this morning! So help me, I will see to it that he finishes it!"

Kingsley Butler calmly cocked his head to the side and folded his arms, making whatever despicable note in his tortuous mind about her behavior that he found so interesting. She rocked on her heels, her chest expanding, ready to leave him and his awfulness.

"Very well, child," he smoothly drawled, "I will take you to your husband—but answer me this—what are you willing to give me in exchange for his freedom?"

Not this! Not another riddle. She simply could not bear it. It was high time someone told her their truth. "What do you mean by freedom? What have you done to Rhett?"

Those black brows lifted and the dark eyes danced chillingly, she felt their cold across the back of her neck. "I did less to him than I would do to any other trespasser who had attacked me and forced my wife to witness such common violence." Slickly he loped toward her. That haunting breeze blew across Scarlett's sensitive flesh and settled there. "And so I will ask again, what are you willing to give up for your husband who you claim to love and for whom you so willingly debauch yourself?"

Fiery words wouldn't char her tongue when she spoke, and with forced politeness she replied, "I am willing to do whatever is necessary, within the bounds of propriety, to deliver Rhett safely to my care."

"What if I required something outside the bounds of propriety?"

"I think you, as a professed gentleman who believes in honor, would never ask me such a thing." She risked a glance at his unnerving gaze. "Now would you?"

"My actions are not under inspection. Yours, however, are. And this is the price of your husband's freedom—to liberate yourself, my charming, peasant child, by unveiling to me all your secrets." This sounded frighteningly similar to things Rhett had said to her over the course of their marriage that she could not tell if he was mocking his son, mocking her, or mocking the entire world. Suddenly he kissed her on the cheek, his lips shockingly hot for one so cold, and removed himself to slant beside the mantle once again. Scarlett almost fell over from the relief and abruptness of his withdrawal, her entire body a thing of wisps and smoke. A tremor in her lips, she lifted her face to her father-in-law.

"I don't know what you mean by secrets. I haven't any secrets to speak of."

"You're a woman; your very existence is a secret."

"You must have some idea what you want to know," she said with a steel she did not feel. "If I have your word that I may leave here today with Rhett, then I will keep answering your impudence with honesty."

She could make nothing from that rigid mask, nothing but her own fear. He nodded, however, which she took as his oath, before saying, in that same philosophic tone, "It is common for young persons to speak of being willing to die for their love, but to sacrifice oneself in such a way is entirely too easy. Death releases them from any obligation to prove their love beyond a fleeting act of impetuosity. Wouldn't you agree?"

Much of what he had said blew past Scarlett as a hot wind. She hated feeling so out of her depth, but that is all she had been since waking up this morning. How was any of this related to her seeing Rhett? "What do I care what other people think?" she asked, feigning superiority for ignorance.

"There is a certain virtue to that sort of independence, as long as it does not alienate one from his or her own society. A specious tenet of your husband is the notion that to be excluded from one's own social group is desirable. He will see the folly of his ways one day, but I wonder if there will be anyone willing to consider him theirs at that point. Nevertheless, I wander from my purpose." He frowned, shaking his head. "To sacrifice for love and live with the consequences of that sacrifice is the true mark of devotion. To kill someone, for example, in the name of love, demonstrates a far deeper commitment than to kill oneself. Tell me, Scarlett, would you kill for Rhett's rescue?"

"I'd kill you," she answered darkly, and his replying smile was dark in kind.

"There are other ways to sacrifice life, to trade a life for a life. What of that, my dear? Would you endure captivity in exchange for Rhett's freedom?

Scarlett didn't know what to say to that—Oh! Where was Rhett? Her gaze bounced around the luxurious, fine furniture, at the heavy, velvet curtains, and wished she could shred it all down to wood chips and threads. "My dear, you vowed to answer, if you please," Kingsley prodded, and she cast emerald knives at him for eyes.

"Yes! I'd switch places with Rhett, if it meant I didn't have to talk and talk about things that don't matter and don't make any sense."

"Talking is tiresome to you, is it? You are woman of action? You would prefer to use your body in lieu of your mind?" He slid his oily gaze over her figure once more. "Would you go to bed with another man in exchange for Rhett's life?"

At first blush, she should have cried out in alarm and offense, should have experienced some mingling of fury and reproach that he would ask her such a dishonorable thing, instead that cool, hard logic in her brain began ticking through the men she knew, discovering with some aversion to the outcome, that if Rhett's life were indeed on the line, she could overcome the revulsion of her heart, for the sake of the man to whom she had given that heart. Some men, she thought, eyeing her disturbing companion, would be easier to embrace. Unintentionally, she compared the Butler men, and with a shame she would never own, knew that her undeniable attraction to the one who was currently on the battlefields of Virginia might make the act of her adultery far less aggrieving than it should be.

Kingsley Butler had remained patiently contemplative during her rational consideration of breaking her wedding vows, and his expression remained attentive and intrigued, when she drilled him with her glittering, green gaze and told him that there wasn't much she wouldn't do to spare her husband's life.

"Is that a yes?"

Even if it was, she found she could not say it, but he waited on her answer with that detached odiousness, and she hedged her reply, "It depends on the man."

"Intriguing. Who are the lucky gentlemen for whom you would sacrifice your virtue?"

"It doesn't matter. None of them would ask me to do such a repulsive thing."

"They may not ask, but they would certainly never question you, if you offered."

"Not all men are as two-faced as you," she said bitingly.

"Regardless, all men—all men attracted to women that is—would lie with you so long as they were breathing, and maybe even dead."

Scarlett's brow wrinkled, as she wondered what men existed who weren't attracted to women, and her reaction drew a soft laugh from her father-in-law's lips, which piled on more confusion.

"Your innocence astonishes as ever," he mumbled cryptically.

"Aren't you bored yet, Mr. Butler?" she asked, depleted of everything.

"Not at all," he lightly replied, "although I can see that you are fatigued. I promise Scarlett, be a good girl and carry on for a little while longer, and you can have your reprobate husband to do with him as you please tonight, and for him to do with you as he pleases."

She wished she could feel relief, but she didn't. What else could he possibly want to know? Vanity aside, she did not believe there was anything left for him to wrest from her dignity; he had stripped it all away with his vile mind. Dully she wondered if she would have felt less exposed had she stood naked before him—at least that demand she might have understood. With her eyes opened to the primal pleasures of the flesh, she could mildly comprehend what men wanted to experience from intimacy, what they sought to arouse by looking upon an undressed female body. He had claimed that all men wanted her body, but not him, and in her heated exhaustion, she began to think she knew why. This was no man; this was a monster. A monster who had stalked across the room while she fretted and floundered in her confusion, and who now patted the seat beside him on the chintz sofa, beckoning her to join him.

"I would prefer to stand,"'she said regally and falsely.

"Come, child, you are about to faint—and then what would I do with you?" There was just enough of a sinister note to his inflection that even Scarlett picked up on it, and she realized that she was much better off awake and afraid than unconscious and defenseless.

She walked with surprising ease to plant herself daintily on the perch beside him, declaring with a slight shake to her voice that she had never fainted in her life. Laughing briefly, he flicked at the ruffles on her cap sleeve and assured her that there was a first time for everything—as she had so kindly reminded him yesterday afternoon. Her skin crawled at his nearness and his playful caress.

"One final question, my dear, but perhaps the most important— certainly to me." Her green eyes bravely locked onto the black. "Would you give up the babe growing in your belly to save your husband?"

"Yes," she said without hesitation.

For some reason, this made Rhett's father almost look triumphant, and he muttered, "Wonderful, absolutely wonderful."

"May I be shown the way to my husband?" she asked tightly, rolling her shoulder from unease.

"Almost, Scarlett," he drawled, folding his hands in his lap, the gesture deceptively comforting, "but wouldn't you like to know why Helena hates you? Why it was such a scandal for Rockwell to dance with you?" Again the direction of his mind found her flat-footed and frowning, but he did not bother waiting for her to reply to explain this other Butler mystery. "Do you not find it unusual that after over a decade of marriage, my only grandchildren are a twin boy and girl of but three?"

"I wasn't aware of the age of the children," she said wonderingly.

"Ah, well, those are their ages. Now it does happen that barrenness sometimes inexplicably ends—but that is not the case here. Those two children are secretly adopted— although they are very much Butlers. A few years ago, Rockwell had an affair with a young widow of our class, and none too discreetly, and when the widow became with child, well there was an opportunity which arose. As it seemed unlikely his wife would produce an heir, he wished to claim the child of his obliging mistress. Helena is not a woman easily gone around, and so, as a condition of accepting any child as her own—Rockwell had to cut off the relationship with the widow and vow to never stray again once she had provided the heir. The entire thing was a sham and mortifying for Helena. The widow went off to hide in a cottage, everyone assuming she had returned to her family up north—for to my shame, she was a Yankee—while Helena wore pillows under her dresses to appear pregnant. To her credit, she does truly love the children, and to the widow's credit, she birthed twins and died in the process, making things incredibly tidy for my family." Kingsley paused then, arching his dark brows. "Do my confidences astound you, child?"

Scarlett looked down at her lap, prettily bewildered. Rhett's father chuckled, and went on in that seductively genteel way: "They should astound you. Only a handful of people know what I have related to you. Rosemary does not even know—she believes what everyone else believes, that Rockwell fell back in love with his wife after the widow's supposed flight, and mended his wandering ways. This is a falsity Helena has worked tirelessly to turn into gospel over the past three years, to erase the widow from memory as fully as she is erased from existence. A victory she believed she had claimed—prior to your dance with Rockwell—and all the memories which that conjured in the minds of the manifold onlookers—who despite their silence well recalled that a few years ago, Rockwell, who famously never dances but with his wife, broke with his tradition and waltzed with another young madame, who in some twist of fate also had raven hair. Quelle ironie! My poor, bulwark of a daughter-in-law. She has never understood the man to which she has bound herself."

His smooth, hot fingers touched Scarlett's chin and tilted her face up. Mystified, she didn't know how her expression appeared. Her mind was trapped in a whirlwind of the undeniable enjoyment of salacious gossip, and the attending dread about what it all meant to her.

Kingsley Butler studied her, his eyes as dark and steady as hers were bright and unfocused. "Misunderstanding must be the curse of marrying into this family," he mused. "Wouldn't you agree, my daughter?"

Scarlett jerked her chin back, as if scalded by the word. "I am not your daughter. You told me as much yesterday, and I'll thank you not to forget that."

Careless of her reaction, he leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. "What if I had a change of mind? Nay, of heart?" He pulled back, so that all she could see was his face—that swarthier, older, identical face.

"I don't understand," she confessed, his quicksilver conversation making it impossible for her to keep her bearings, feeling as if she was back on the sail boat, the waves tossing her in the darkness, only there was no Rhett to act as her guide and steer her safely ashore.

"Tell me what you do not understand."

She shirked away from him, but she could not retract more than a few inches before bumping into the sofa back. "You said you didn't have a heart—"

"I told you Rhett had taken my heart. There is a difference."

"You've said horrible, nasty things to me from the moment you crossed my path."

Kingsley reclined back, and Scarlett's breath sped out of her lungs. "I may have misjudged you, as you are currently misjudging me." He crossed his elegant legs, the picture of ease and grace, save for the injured arm. "I shall do you the great honor of clarifying myself for you, as assessing people and situations is obviously not one of your strengths. First, I had no premeditated interest or even curiosity in you, up until our encounter yesterday. Second, I cannot stress how much your, shall I call it, gumption, impressed me. And lastly, on a related note, how very much we are in need of your healthy, vital fertility."

"My—my what?" Scarlett sputtered, wanting to wrap herself in a thick blanket to curtain her body from his unfeeling inspection.

He smirked at her, no merriment in his black gaze. "Rockwell's children are sickly, Scarlett. In fact, they were sick on the night of the ball, when you danced with my son. Their ailings should come as little surprise. Their natural mother was a weak woman who expired in the act of bearing them. The Butler blood had little potency against that amount of frailty. I worry for my blood line. I worry for the Butler name. When Rosemary weds, her children will belong to her husband's name and heritage. I had accepted the probability of our family tree ending on the male side with me, but then as manna from heaven, you and your peasant hardiness fall from the proverbial sky and land at my feet—just as your cast-iron poker did yesterday afternoon."

Instinctively, Scarlett folded her arms across her womb. "You want Rhett's and my baby, for your own?"

"Yes," he said, his voice dipped in satiny liquid, "but not as you imagine. I want you for mine, as well. I want you as my recognized daughter, Scarlett. Appearances must be kept; you must come into the fold, too."

"I don't know what you mean." Her head was beginning to throb under the stress of the day.

"It means that I was foolish all those years ago when I chose Helena for Rockwell. I equated size with stamina, but I should have foreseen how her overtly masculine figure would fail to provide an heir. I should have selected a maiden with an evocative, unerringly feminine shape, plucked that maid out of near obscurity, convinced by the sloping curves and the rounded hips," his eyes brushed across her body with indecent precision, "by the ample breasts so divinely supple that a man wants nothing more than to cup their soft abundance in his hands and squeeze to the point of pain, that such a maid as that, such a maid as you, would produce the strapping offspring which a manly woman like Helena never could."

A sick fizz gurgled in Scarlett's stomach, and she clung more tightly to her own abdomen, a flush spackling her cheeks. "You can't have me—"

"But I do have you, Scarlett. You already told me what you'd be willing to give up. I'm not even demanding you prove your love in the number of ways you claimed you'd be ready to demonstrate, save one."

"But...but you told me you'd take me to Rhett for answering your questions," she said haltingly. "You can't just go and change the rules."

"The times have changed the rules. This is not the Old World. I determine the destiny and identity of my heir. I have made the change before to my will, and I can do so once more." He slid towards her again, and she recoiled, but he grabbed ahold of her wrists with an iron cuff of fingers, his massive hand able to easily capture her with his single good arm. "Have you heard nothing that I have said? Must everything be spelled out for you? I am offering you a wealthy inheritance, a storied legacy, and a coveted place at my side—and your husband as well."

Scarlett went limp with shock, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Rhett? You'd receive Rhett again?"

Kingsley arched a single brow, his hand as firm on her wrists as before. "Why do you think I asked you those questions, child? I needed to know the direction of your feelings and the rigidity of your devotion. I asked for your truth, now here is mine. I had considered drawing you away from Rhett, and pairing you with Rockwell, as problematic as that may be remembering the tenacity of Helena and the inconveniences of your respective marriages, but I banished the idea. I was not lying when I told you your husband took my heart—he trampled on everything I had taught him about duty to one's family and honor to one's creed, and I cut him off, without hesitation, but that does not signify it was without heartbreak. There is an opportunity for him to make amends—and earn back his keep."

"Rhett will never ask for your forgiveness."'As little as she knew about her husband; she knew this much. To repent for Rhett was to die. He couldn't even show compunction toward her. He'd never show sorrow for his actions toward his father.

"He is greedy, Scarlett. It is his most fundamental flaw."

"He's done well enough on his own."

"He's done better than I ever imagined, or indeed, desired."

"He has—so why would he give it all up?"

"He wouldn't, not for me, but he may for you and his child. He has always coveted my wealth, even as he has despised the duties which come along with it. In marrying you, he has shown some ability to act responsibly. Somehow you convinced him to choose the gentleman's way on a matter which is the longest-lasting and most consequential. You can convince him on this much smaller issue."

"And what if I can't? What if Rhett refuses to make amends? What then? What if I don't agree to any of this?" She glared, her face a swirl of greenish crimson, failing again to extricate her hands. "Are you going to keep him from me? Keep me from seeing him? You told me you would take me to him."

"I told you I would reunite you, and I shall. As for convincing him to see things as I do," he scorched her with an audacious gaze, "use your obvious gifts."

"Have you no decency?"

"I have nothing but decency—for the good of our cause. All else no longer matters. The future alone matters. The South needs all of its sons, even the fallen ones. This is Rhett's moment of redemption, and you are his salvation." Kingsley lowered his head and voice. "Perhaps you might also be mine."

Suddenly, his hot lips were kissing the tops of her hands, and she flinched at the burning, wrongful tenderness, struggling to no avail to remove her fists from the vice of his hold. "You cannot do this! You will not do this!" she seethed.

He stopped and raised his inky gaze, an almost-hunger in the depths. "Dear, if I wanted to do what you are implying by your insistence and relative resistance to my fatherly affection, I would have already done so. As alluring as your body may be, you are carrying a child, and I am hopeful it is a state of expectancy in which you will often be—as often as time and Mother Nature allow."

With a lazy, final kiss on her knuckle, he flung her hands back onto her lap and stood up, extending his uninjured hand to her. Enraged, she stared at his offer of assistance. Her chest swayed with fury, and she measured the seconds by the rise and fall of her breath. Refusing his empty chivalry, she stood by her own merits.

He smiled with his lips closed. "Come, child bride. Let us take you to your husband. You have earned it."

Scarlett had no idea how she had convinced him at last to solve the mystery of the whereabouts of her missing husband, Rhett's absence more and more worrisome and conspicuous as the hours ticked by, her anxiety building as she spent longer and longer in this place of a counterfeit peace. Suspicious by nature when confronted by other injuriously selfish souls, she followed Kingsley Butler out of the drawing room, with a wariness that weighed down her feet. Like it or not, her options were limited, and if her horse-obsessed pa had taught her anything, it was to not look that gift mare in the mouth—no matter who the giver was.

Blind to all but the man beside her, whose courtesies she adamantly refused to accept, she could not say how many rooms they had passed through, or even whether they had walked outside for a moment, or several moments. She would never be able to say anything about that silent march through Rhett's childhood home and former front yard, never recall seeing the cottonwoods which arched as a pavilion above the solid, oak hatch door on the side of the house, nor the descent down the damp, darkened stone steps, nor even the dank gloom of the dungeon as it opened to her horrified eyes. Oddly, in years after, it was the smell of the place that stuck with her—the stench of human waste and sweat and blood mixing together in a sickening, sharp aroma. The pungent smell hit her in the nose and she retched, clutching at her convulsing stomach.

Panting, she smeared the bile from her mouth and scanned the space, chains were bolted to concrete columns shooting up from the ground of stone; all empty but for the iron shackles at the far end of the dungeon. Her gaze rested on the lone prisoner. He had stood up at her dissonant appearance and disgraceful entrance, and now looked her in the eye.

All that talk about Rhett's freedom hadn't been riddles or fancy figures of speech; it had been as straight-forward as child's play.

"Rhett! Oh my darling!" she cried, shaking as a dried reed in a gale. Acrid tears sprang to her eyes and she ran to her husband, strangling him in a desperate embrace. He grunted deeply at her fevered, frantic greeting, and she drew back at the sound. Her clouded vision could not decipher his expression in the flickering dim of the candlelight. Her trembling hands rested gingerly on his bare chest, as she took him wholly into her notice. Stubble roughened his jawline, and his hair was mussed. The white sailor pants were frayed with filth, as was his entire body, and he was barefoot, but there was something more, the more not including the shackles on his hands. It wasn't so much what he was wearing, it was how he was wearing it.

"Rhett?" she asked in a whisper, tears dripping from her chin.

"Best not cry too much more, Scarlett, I haven't a handkerchief on me at the moment."

He smiled at her then, with a touch of regret she was too young to notice, even if she had seen him under the noonday sun, but with enough of that reckless resilience there, that swagger despite the shackles, that her tender heart swelled, and she beamed tearfully up at him.

"I've come to save you from this horrible place," she said fervently.

"Is that so?" Rhett asked, his gaze lifting over her shoulder. "How very unconventional."

"You cannot consider yourself the only man capable of flouting tradition," drawled a voice behind her and she spun around, in a flurry.

Whatever fear had lingered amidst her disgust of the dungeon, and her relief at seeing Rhett—even a chained Rhett—but nevertheless an unbowed, teasing Rhett, melted away. She took two bold steps to her father-in-law and slapped him across the face with all the rage which had consumed the fright. Kingsley Butler flinched but did not fall back from her assault, his black eyes callously looking her up and down. Her mind teemed with curses which she could not latch onto, and she sputtered: "You, you lying cad! You low-down, nasty cad! Uncuff Rhett this instance! All this talk of honor and heartbreak and claiming me as your daughter—touching me and talking at me, while my husband, your son, rotted in a chains!"

"You must learn to curb your temper, child," Kingsley said evenly, "and keep your reactions relevant to the situation. You are fortunate none but those present witnessed your error in judgment. Furthermore, it has been but a few hours, surely, your husband has not reached the point of rotting."

"He is right, my pet. The hospitality of my childhood home would never permit me to go as far as decay." Confused anger rippled over Scarlett's expression as she turned around to her husband. Why was he trying to defend anything about his treatment? How could he make jokes about any of this? Rhett's face was smooth, and his eyes glittered in the dungeon light, though not in her direction. "Indeed, the Butler hospitality is mythic for its generosity," he lifted his chained hands to his father, "and its thoroughness."

"Always so clever, Rhett. Your wit has never wanted for imagination."

"While your punishments have only ever wanted for imagination."

"One does not need to be creative to be effective."

"Nor clever, either."

"Cleverness is lauded by men who lack true character. Do you think Eli thanks you for your cleverness?"

"Did you allow Neb to do more for Eli than to stare uselessly at him, Kingsley?" And at last, Rhett's voice had an edge to it.

"Nebuchadnezzar will do his duty; Eli is none of your concern," his father said in an equally icy tone. He was so close to Scarlett, it chilled her, and unknowingly, she moved back toward her husband, rubbing her arms for warmth.

"His condition is partially my doing—"

"His present state is wholly your doing. Do not shrink from responsibility. Truly, should Eli perish from your error, you will receive a bill of payment from me."

Scarlett studied Rhett, trying but failing to guess in what way her husband was responsible for this Eli's condition. As usual, his face gave nothing away. She listened to the perplexing back and forth; she had been unable to fathom the earlier laconic, light voices of the father and son duo—but she preferred that bizarre repartee on cleverness to the cold confusion now transpiring.

"I will pay double for Eli," Rhett said blankly.

"I made a similar deal for Rebekkah and now regret it; I will not be swayed by sentiment or silver this time around."

"You would let one of your best blacksmiths die for spite, but not let him go to me for a price."

"He will not expire—and if he does, it will be from your actions, not mine. I relish you revealing Eli's fate to Rebekkah, should that improbability arrive."

"Who is this Eli?" Scarlett asked, tired of being completely ignored. "And what does he have to do with Rebekkah?" She glanced between the two men, the older one's deep complexion blending into the grainy dimness, the bare chest of her husband striking against the same gritty dark.

"Do not trouble yourself, child," Kingsley quietly urged. "Part of your husband's punishment is to remind him that his actions lead to inadvertent consequences, and that his poor choices impact those outside of himself."

"I have a feeling my wife has already been the unfortunate recipient of your instruction today," Rhett said, a note of warning in his voice, and he looked to Scarlett, explaining: "Eli was inadvertently wounded this morning, in the course of the enthusiastic welcome which I received."

"And you want him for your own now?"

"He is a skilled worker."

"Do you plan on needing a blacksmith anytime soon?"

"I could use one at the moment," Rhett replied, clanking his cuffs.

"Are you making one of your jokes?"

"Life is a joke, my dear, one long, terrible joke."

"I don't think I like your jokes."

"All the more reason to procure Eli. He always did enjoy my sense of humor. Certainly more so than my wife—or his wife—does."

"Who is his wife?"

"Rebekkah," Rhett replied, his gaze back on his father; there was an undercurrent of viciousness in his bass voice that drove away interest at this announcement and made Scarlett shiver. Instinct shifted her frisson of fright into added fury, and her eyes lit on Kingsley. She put up her palm. This had gone on for long enough. "The keys please, or I swear I won't speak a word to Rhett about your intentions."

She had no idea how Kingsley expected her to coax Rhett into coming back home, especially now, but she knew she would have to at least tell Rhett of his father's unlikely wishes. There would be no getting around that dismal conversation. This was her only bargaining chip.

Kingsley had remained eerily silent during this time, and he remained silent still at her demand. The mark of her hand had disappeared from his chestnut cheek, and he appeared as unruffled and refined, his injured arm adding an air of bravery, as if he stood in a king's court as opposed to his own shameful prison. Scarlett's waiting palm closed into an uncertain fist, but she repeated herself, trying not to twitch or tremble.

"Your wife has a proposition for you, Rhett," he said finally, ignoring Scarlett's second request. "I suggest you hear her out. I expect an answer by tomorrow." His lightless eyes sought her face at last, and he withdrew a key chain from his inner pocket. "Come here, child, and I will give you these."

Scarlett turned to Rhett for some guidance, and when he curtly nodded, she closed the short distance between Kingsley and herself. He lifted her hand and placed the key chain around her wrist, as if it were a precious bracelet.

"I told you I would take you to your husband. I have fulfilled my promise. Now it is your duty to fulfill my request. The war is as young as you are child, those realities will not always be the case. Prove to me my faith in you and you will be rewarded indefinitely." Leisurely, he kissed her on the cheek."If you fail me, remember this space, and the judgement which awaits the unfaithful."

Speechless, Scarlett watched him walk away, the hot damp from his kiss chilling into an icy circle on her cheek. At the stairs, he paused. "Leave the keys on the hook by the hatch door." In a few sharp footfalls, the monstrous man had disappeared up the stairs, leaving her trembling and more than a little breathless. She whipped around to Rhett, shaking now more than ever before, her courage in the face of danger dwindling as embers in her bones. Fumbling with the keys, she cursed. "I can't find it. Oh which key is it?" She raised the chain to Rhett, the image of a lost, broken girl, because in that moment, that was all she could stand to be. But standing, she still was.

"Scarlett."

Her name on Rhett's soft, sure voice eased over her as a lullaby. Glossy tears welled in her eyes and cascaded down in an unstoppable current. "It should be a silver one," he said, his expression darkening with an unperceived violence, "with two prongs."

Weeping, Scarlett nodded and instantly located the one fitting his description. She moved to Rhett, unlocking his irons. Her tears fell now with exhausted abandon; her arms wrapped around Rhett's broad shoulders and she clung to him, lost for a moment in her own world, so lost, she did not initially notice the roughness of his back or the quick breaths of pain as she hung around around his neck. When she did feel, she jumped away from him.

"Turn around," she commanded, wiping the tears from her face.

"It isn't as bad as it seems," Rhett said, rubbing his wrists and stepping toward her. "There isn't any broken flesh. Not for his son. No ankle braces, either. His arbitrary rules for divvying and doling out punishments must be kept."

"Forget his rules! I'll be the judge of of how bad it is."

Rhett frowned at her, as if deciding to turn around now or to politely refuse until a later time. Without a word, he took another step toward her, the heat from his bare chest peppering her skin with a fresh sheen of sweat. "My father has a remarkable talent of inflicting pain without incurring scars. The welts will heal, and none will be the wiser of their ever having existed. Trust me."

With that, he spun around for her. She bit her tongue to conceal her disgust. He was right—no flesh had been punctured, no skin had been torn, but the marks shined as angry stripes across his bronze skin. After a silent minute, he faced her again, his expression as distant as he was near.

"Your father did that?" she asked, horrified.

"He watched. He's trained others in the art of brutality. It has been many years since he has sullied himself with physical violence."

"And you let him?"

Rhett gave a ghost of a grin. "If by let him, you mean I was outmanned within two minutes of my foolishness by about ten to one, then yes, I let myself be struck with a willow branch and carted off to what is endearingly called the king's castle."

For some reason she couldn't hold her gaze on him, instead trailing it around the cold stone of the floor, wondering what must have happened here for the pungency of death to linger, and the full story behind how her indomitable Rhett had come to be a captive here. She wanted her answers, but they remained in this dungeon, the stench of rottenness all around them.

"Come on, Scarlett," Rhett said, his gaze keen on her face. "You can harp at me once we're out of this hell hole."

Kindly, he took her hand and led them up the stairs, remembering to lift the keys from her wrist and hang them on the hook to their requested place. As the keys clinked together, Scarlett heard the bells from the fields chime the hour, and for the first time since waking up this morning, she stepped into the light and truly exhaled.

—

Note. Thanks for all the reviews. I tried to answer those of you who logged in...Scarlett is spunky but scared. Maybe less confused? Hopefully y'all are too! Some of you love Rebekkah and Eleanor some of you don't...I love both reactions. I almost posted a different version of this chapter but didn't go through with it and reworked it. But at last it feels right. In the novel when Rhett's father dies, it is one of the few times his mask breaks in front of Scarlett and he is his unvarnished self. He feels for his mother and hates his father. I think because we all revert, to some extent, when with our family, that Rhett would not be quite so cool if a confrontation were to occur with his dad. Rhett is always such a man of mystery in the book and I like the idea of him being an open book to his father. Rhett and Kingsley have reciprocating contempt for each other. He had to get that odious personality from somewhere! And his hatred for all things "gentleman." Enter his father. (His sense of humor is obviously from his mother.) I hope this chapter was less confusing for some of you than the last. Hmm. This was a hard chapter to find the tone for, but I hope I got there.

I did wonder about putting him in chains, but he had to be bound somehow and I couldn't see him staying put in mere ropes. He'd find a way out of those. Hence the very specific rules Rhett mentions, which highlight what an arbitrary and artificial world view it is to divide people into superficially-based hierarchies.

Some may wonder why Eleanor left Scarlett alone. I had an entire exposition on that given by her that I found redundant. I hope it's obvious why she left—she must weave a very fine line to maintain peace in her home...and I think she knew her husband well enough that he would not do something physical to Scarlett...not while pregnant.

Have a happy Monday! Let me know what you think. Oh and finally! The mystery of the Rockwell scandal is (mostly) revealed. Now hopefully it makes more sense why Aunt Eulalie and Rebekkah told Scarlett she couldn't go home to Tara after the dance. And lastly Rebekkah. Yep. She's married...and there will be more to Eli and her relationship coming up. Cheers!

Next chapter is lighter, and hopefully illuminating.