The county had changed in the three months since Scarlett's departure. Everyone above a certain age wore puckered looks and furrowed expressions, always in a hurry, on their way to somewhere else. Every man under a certain age was gone with the troops, gone in the fervor of war and the promise of glory. The neighborhood surrounding Tara sagged under the weight of the absence of so many of its sons. There were no late-night parties which flurried beneath the blue summer moon, no days' long barbecues thick with the aroma of smoked meat and the careless laughter of the feasting crowd, no evening balls where the music and dancers spilled out onto verandas woven in wisteria and lovers stole kisses underneath the starlight.
Altered or not, it was still home to Scarlett, still a reprieve from the sinister eccentricities of Rhett's family and the demanding rules of Charleston's elite. She could confidently stroll through the fresh cedars and pines or wander amidst the fragrant orchards, free from the oppressive shade of Cyprus trees and the briny fog of the sea, spend unchecked hours in the company of people who knew her and would not scorn her, fritter her days away in lazy conversations with her sisters, relishing the frivolous spats which flavored her interactions with Suellen, and dole out pure sweetness to Carreen, who along with Mammy and Ellen, fussed over her, encouraging her to rest as much as possible, and making excuses for her bad tempers with indulgent glances at her belly. Rebekkah and Eulalie had treated her with the same care once they had discovered her condition, but the pillowy attention and constant spoiling by her family soothed in a deeper, more satisfying way.
There was an easiness to her life now which had been missing in Charleston: a golden, lazy privilege in which she had unthinkingly flourished, and so thoughtlessly forfeited. She knew her time at home was limited, and the undetermined brevity of her stay made her want to cherish every moment, every passing caress by a familiar hand, every meandering walk through the ripening peach trees, every kind word spoken by a neighbor. This last pleasure was newly appreciated by her, not only due to what she had left behind, but because of whom she had brought along. For it was into this diminished society that Scarlett must carve out a place, temporary though it was, for herself and for her unpredictable, problematic husband.
These north Georgian people did not hold their noses in the air with the same contempt and constancy as did Charlestonians when a whiff of scandal hung about a person, but the mood of the fathers, mothers, and sisters who had sent their beloved boys off to the battlefields was decidedly against a healthy, hardy man like Rhett who chose to dress in silk shirts as opposed to grey broadcloth. Perhaps that failing, as well as his infamous history, could be forgiven considering his status as a blockade runner for the Cause, but this was not their first encounter with the dandified coastal southerner. These rustic, clear-minded families could not so easily forget that Butler man's comments under the arbor of the Wilkes' backyard, nor could they choose to ignore how he had stolen the belle of their county, courted by a fair few of their soldier lads. Scarlett had always been fast, and frankly, for most of the mothers, and all of the jilted maidens of the beaux she had commandeered, they rejoiced that she had not entrapped their sweet sons or hoped-for husbands, but she might have done better than a coward and a scoundrel. For Gerald, and more so for Ellen, however, they united to receive the man of disrepute, their noses pinched rather than upturned.
The greatest difference from Scarlett's people and Rhett's kind lay in the frankness of the former. If they scowled at the interloper, they told him precisely what irked them about his presence. If they opened their doors to him with less than cordial grace, they did not shirk not from explaining to him just what they found so wrong about him; every critique delivered in that quintessentially southern style of harshness wrapped in sweetness, neary a condemnation spoken but when propped between endearing terms and backhanded compliments. "My dear Mr. Butler," they often began, inserting their disapprobation of his person, and ending with a standard "bless your heart" or another similar rejoinder. Chagrined, Scarlett frowned right back at her hosts or guests, but Rhett inevitably lifted his eye brows in mock surprise, grinning in genuine amusement. His ability to take criticism with "the balls of a brass bull," as Mrs. Tarleton phrased it, went a long way toward tempering the resentment and swaying the adamantine minds in his favor.
It was little surprise that the horse-loving lady was one of the first to capitulate to his suave charms and flat drawl, or that Rhett sealed the deal by offering her some useable advice on what to do with a stern gelding. Scarlett had come to pay her respects for the death of Boyd, who had fallen at Bull Run. A silent figure, she stood under the dogwood leaves remembering the time the wiry eldest Tarleton had snuck up on her in this very shade as Stuart and she had been enjoying the kisses of early youth. Her stomach hurt as she realized she would never hear his slick lawyerly arguments again. His mother, though draped in black crepe, hardly seemed to notice his passing. Scarlett shook off her grim reveries and listened to Rhett win over the flaming-haired matriarch. There was something doubly naughty about his false politeness to a grieving mother—even one as unflappable as Beatrice Tarleton—but Rhett maintained his deferential, distinguished manners in public, reserving his usual bite only for the privacy of their bed.
From sun up to sun down, he preened and flattered with all the cock and flare of a bantam rooster, and Scarlett began to believe her husband had mended his churlish ways for no other purpose than because it gave him some backwards delight to strut his superficial airs to people he deemed beneath him. In fact, he admitted as much to her one evening after supping with the Munroes and Fontaines, in far fewer words and with much more latent cruelty. Scarlett could make no reply to his acerbic quips about individuals whom she had known for her entire life, choosing instead to feign sleep during his boorish speech. An act or not, she would not complain.
Within a week, Rhett was tolerated by most in the neighborhood, and downright admired by others. He accepted the triumph with a malicious humor, cryptically joking to Scarlett that Tara was well worth a mass—so long as he could be as sincere in his devotion as Chaucer's friar. When she asked him whether Chaucer were a town near Charleston or some other place abroad, he called her a charming ignoramus and told her that if he had any actual decency he would spend his energy broadening her mind with moral tales instead of trying to broaden her morals. Then he kissed her with unashamed lust, evading more questions and erasing her scowl.
Around this time, Rhett accompanied Scarlett on an overdue return call at Twelve Oaks. It was the one place which she had detected a hint of authentic interest from her husband in seeing again. For herself, she was ambivalent about the visit, old memories of half-tender desires muddled her wish to behold the home she had once adored more than Tara, the house she had once envisioned as her future roost over which to rule.
Although now deeply in love with her husband, possessively clutching his arm as she swept up the familiar elegant stairs of the Wilkes' porch, Scarlett's indignation was yet trained on the far-away Ashley. Her enmity towards him had not eased from time or space, and if anything, continued to harden into a brittle but relentless umbrage, a shadow of stuff and stiffness. The bygone blond knight couldn't know of her new loyalties to her husband, but he was still to blame for Rhett's brazen lie that had led to her hap-dash engagement. To forgive him for that would be tantamount to forgiving him for saying in word that he cared for her while in deed loving Melanie.
Her green gaze quivered disdainfully in the direction of the outcrop of bushes where she had spied that fateful embrace between Ashley and Melanie, remembering the crushing bitterness of that blow without feeling the sting of it, as if biting into a rotten fruit and tasting nothing but blandness. Had she been forced to see him now, she might have been able to begin to forge a path toward reconciliation, to rely on their shared past of afternoon rides filled with the music of jangling bridle bits and his melodious voice, of twilight danceables alive with giggles and fiddles, but he was not at home, and the distinct void of his absence made a greater impression on her anger with him than his presence might have achieved.
A heart as whole and as wholly vain as was Scarlett's heart could not endure Ashley's assail to break it, or his insult of wanting something else in place of her great offering. If only she could flaunt her love for her husband; if only she could have Ashley accidentally witness Rhett kissing her, bending her backwards in his strong arms, hungrily pressing his lips and body into her, putting to rest any belief Ashley cherished that she loved him. Oh! That was worst of all! That was the driving force behind her resentment. To live with the knowledge that he must still think she harbored a softness for him! That he must congratulate himself on being able to claim her in anyway as his own! It was torture when she thought of it—which is why she worked her charm of choosing not to think of it as swiftly as the rancorous recollection came to mind, but she could not banish the remembrance now, not in his house, not within view of the library doors where she had made a fool of herself and a liar of him, not while his sister acted as if she held onto the same delusions.
During the call, India behaved as expected, with her usual coolness, receiving Rhett with an unreadable expression and Scarlett with an aloof cordiality. Her father was the picture of indiscriminate kindness towards them. If he loathed or loved her husband, no one could say—least of all Scarlett, but she did notice a similar tone of respect in Rhett's voice that she only heard him employ towards her mother. Honey gushed in her saccharine style, mentioning her Charlie on multiple occasions. Scarlett swallowed the light contempt of India better knowing she had a love note from Rosemary tucked away in her valise that would crush her sister. Suddenly her palm itched to hand that coded message directly to the mooncalf former beaux. Her face must have shown some smugness, because Rhett replied to Honey's next exclamation on the wonders of Charles Hamilton with a pointed look and a pert comment on the vagaries of young love, and how comforting it was to know that for some young women, their first infatuations remained fixed as their forever affections.
As the stilted conversation was shuttering to a close, Rhett asked Mr. Wilkes if he might pass through the library before leaving. "I have fond memories of it from my last visit," he said mildly, a puckish glint in his gaze. The stately gentleman adhered to his request, leading his guests down the hall. Scarlett blushed in silent fury, checking her vitriol at the tip of her tongue. After a brief exchange between the two men on some of the elder's recent acquisitions, Rhett assured Mr. Wilkes that he need not remain with them in the library if he had other demands on his time. "I know my wife considers Twelve Oaks as her home away from home," he silkily drawled.
"I would not wish it any other way. Our doors are always open to her, and to you, sir." John Wilkes' grey eyes wrinkled benevolently at the sour smile upon Scarlett's lips, and he gracefully accepted Rhett's release of his hosting obligations, wishing them farewell and urging them to stay as long as they desired. "If you choose to borrow a book, Captain Butler, mark it down in the journal on the desk, if you please."
And with a bow of his silver head, he departed. As soon as the door clicked shut, Scarlett rounded on her husband.
"Name of god!" she rasped. "What are you thinking?"
It was immediately clear to her what he was thinking. He tossed aside the book he had nicked off the shelf, stalked right up to her, and his eyes daring her to resist, accosted her with his warm, laughing lips. She could feel the smile upon them as they moved against her mouth, the vibration of his amusement tickling her skin. He trailed them down her neck, his fingers kneading her back, and she ordered him to stop what he was doing and explain himself, cursing her warbling voice.
"I think my actions speak for themselves," he brushed kisses along her neck, behind her ear, across her collarbone while he spoke, "but as for the why—taking spousal liberties, living out a fantasy, successfully stirring you into a tempest."
"You really are a hound."
"Do you have any idea how charming you were the last time I saw you here? I wanted to have you for myself right then and there."
"Charming? It was the most humiliating day of my life."
"It is my second most treasured memory of you."
"You mustn't kiss me there, and I think you have an abominable memory."
"Oh, no my memory is quite accurate wherever you are concerned. Don't you care to ask me what my most treasured memory of you is?"
"No—that is, not unless it's something sweet."
"Sweet is a matter of taste, but for me, it is the sweetest memory of my life."
"It is?"
"Undoubtedly."
"What is it?"
"The first time we made love."
"Oh."
"You sound disappointed."
"No, it's just husbands aren't supposed to talk to their wives about things like that."
"Things like how you're the most beautiful naked woman I've ever held in my arms."
"Yes! Things like that."
"I could talk about how your eyes light up like two glowing emeralds in a kiln when you're in a passion."
"That's almost as bad, and Rhett, you really shouldn't be kissing me like that in here."
"But if I stop, you may keep your temper, and then what would I do to please myself?"
"I'm your wife; I'm not here to please your every whim."
"Then you should learn to check your anger. I do love it when you're in one of your rages. There I'll unfasten the top of your dress just to see if I can't rile you up."
"Rhett! Stop! Someone could see me like this."
"I swear if you promise to start throwing things, I'll buy you a trousseau of new Parisian gowns. I already owe you more pantalettes—of the French variety. As I said, no more prudish buttons to tear away."
His face dipped further down into her diving cleavage, the front of her dress hanging open. A thrill of fear and desire stole through her body, and at last she tried to shove him off, going so far as kicking him on his shin.
"Great balls of fire, Rhett Butler! Ashley's father or sisters could come in here!"
He removed his roving lips from her heaving bosom and raised his head, grinning curiously, pinning his hands over her shoulders. "Ah! There it is—the carefully-cultivated southern lady at the mercy of her hot rebel blood. I'll admit you required more needling and, er, necking before speaking the honorable name of your discarded lover, but I knew you would come back to him in the end."
"Oh! What is wrong with you?" Rouging from top to bottom, she jerked away and quickly did up her dress front. It was the most matronly-design she owned, a wedding gift from her mother, with a high-ruffled buttoned collar, long, chiffon sleeves, and a blended vest that tapered down to a belted waist. She gathered her composure and glared at her husband. "What does Ashley have to do with you acting like a boor?"
"You don't think the brave soldier deserves some mentioning?"
"I don't think he has anything to do with us."
Rhett watched her, that devilry fading from his expression. "No, I suppose he no longer does have much to do with us." He spoke this almost to himself, and with a shrug, asked her if she were ready to leave. Yes! She wanted to leave but she wasn't done smarting over his bad joke of coming to the library. His kisses had been playful, but the setting of them insulting.
"Don't you have anything else to say to me?" she demanded in a huff.
"I think I've said more than enough for one afternoon. Don't get greedy, Scarlett. It's unbecoming."
"Greedy? You owe me an apology."
"No, that's your mother's teachings making you feel disrespected. The real you wanted me to throw all caution to the wind, or the shelves as it were, and defile the holy ground of your first confession of love by delighting yourself underneath the body of your second love."
"More despicable talk like that and I'll thank you to keep your hands and lips to yourself for the rest of the day."
"Ah! A threat with no teeth. I notice you conveniently ended the boycott of my affections before nightfall when we will be in bed."
His boyish leer had resurfaced and lifting her skirts, she stomped toward the hallway. There was no use in shaming a shameless cad. Chuckling, he followed her out of the Twelve Oaks library, thoughtfully shutting the door with a satisfyingly loud thud.
~0~
There were a handful of exceptions to the general shift in the opinion of Rhett, all of which resided within Scarlett's own home. The climate of acceptance ranged from the stubbornly warm to the retrenched frigid. Gerald fell into the warmer side of Rhett's initial reception. Scarlett rarely saw her husband in the mornings, his attention and time being dominated by her pa's jovial demands and tenacious friendship. At first it was a funny oddity, and then a predictable nuisance, to perceive the dissimilar pair riding on her pa's two finest steeds, jumping stiles and disturbing coveys of nesting birds in their races through the twisted bridle paths, their crashing approach heralded by the excited yelp of unseen swamp dogs. Scarlett couldn't understand her pa's unalloyed welcome of a son-in-law to whom he had only reluctantly given his fatherly blessing three months ago, until Dilcey dryly observed that Mista Gerald finally had himself a son.
After that helpful hint, Scarlett teased her pa for his hypocrisy. "And why shouldn't I be glad to get me a son, Puss? He might not be my blood but his children will be. And though he is something of a fop with all those frills on his shirts, I won't be cursing him as he can shoot a possum's tail clean off with one shot."
"You didn't seem so keen on his reputation if I recall," she said.
"Ach. Who can judge a man's character by the likes of your aunts? 'Tis not so long ago they might have spoken as poorly of me."
To this Scarlett merely bit her lip. Not long ago was a generous estimate—Aunt 'Lalie had mentioned her belief in her younger sister's mésalliance as recently as Scarlett's farewell visit.
Mésalliances were a family trait, according to some. If Scarlett were to ask Mammy, one could and should judge Rhett by the likes of Eulalie and Pauline, by the likes of anyone who was willing to disparage him. Those deep-set eyes had no more wavered in their distrust of Cap'n Butler than the bulwarks in Virginia had failed. As much as possible, Scarlett shut her ears to the strictures on Rhett's conduct Mammy winnowed into their discussions at night, each grumble echoing in time with the snap of the string as she unlaced the stays. "He look at my lam' like she a meal fer him to gobble all up." A tug and the whip of the string through the fabric. "It ain' fittin. It ain' da way no husband ought ter look at his wife. And da mother of his chil' no less." Scarlett heard the complaints so often, she would soon know them better than the Lord's Prayer; she heard them so often, she wanted them outright contradicted by another, maternal voice.
Scarlett longed to know Ellen's true thoughts on Rhett, but her mother never opined on the subject of her son-in-law's status as a man stricken from his family bible and stripped of his birthright, treating him with the unfailing but detached compassion she bestowed upon all who crossed her threshold. Lead coated Scarlett's tongue if she hesitated to even mention her husband's questionable past and the rumors which dogged his heels wherever he roamed—rumors for the most part which Scarlett could neither confirm nor deny. Aside from the Plimpton scandal and the particulars of the duel—that latter aspect of the story not elaborated by Rhett but retold by Eulalie, she knew very little about the previous thirteen years of her husband's life. What could she possibly tell her mother if she pressed her daughter on the type of man she had married?
A cavern of all the things she could not discuss with her mother seemed to be widening. Since Scarlett's earliest memories, Gerald and she had always kept certain facts from Ellen, a tacit pact to persevere their freedoms and spare the gentler nature of Mrs. O'Hara, but these self-imposed embargoes were of a meaner motivation. Scarlett feared her mother viewed Rhett as Mammy did, with consternation and shame, and when convinced of this reality in the face of Ellen's circumspection, a blasphemous thought sometimes disturbed her peace, a vile accusation abrim in her mind that she dare not contemplate. The blasphemy was the startling potential to condemn her mother for her ill-fated love affair with her wild cousin. A sick knot sat in Scarlett's gut when she reflected on what she had learned of Ellen's past. At the height of the day, with vistas of friendly pines before her eyes and the familiar fug of summer heat enveloping her, she could pretend she knew nothing of that long-since dead Phillipe, but in the lull of night, as the gossamer glow of the moon crept across her bed, she sometimes struggled to banish the insolent knowledge, the struggle banishing her sleep.
There were unseemly truths she still fought to accept: that her godly mother was no saint; that she possessed something to lord over Ellen, if desperate; that there existed something startling and scandalous which bound daughter to mother. That last was the way Rhett had framed it for her months ago. Ellen had given her heart to a scoundrel, and so had her daughter. He had encouraged her to interpret the affair as a means of forging a stronger connection, but she knew that was a conversation she would rather die than begin. Still, under the secrecy of night, Scarlett's gaze would skim the profile of her sleeping husband, the moonlight shining on the pale of her flesh intertwined with the bronze of his skin, her hand resting on the down of his chest hair, questions she never could imagine voicing rising as specters in the dark. Had Phillipe loved her mother in return? Had they shared vows? Possibly kisses? Did her pa know about him?
Once she rolled away from Rhett and sighed deeply, wondering how her mother would react if she even mentioned the name Phillipe. Her husband's arm suddenly wrapped around her waist and spun her back toward him. Black rectangles shadowed over his hawkish features and his eyes glistened strangely in the midnight gloaming.
"My father won't bother us here," he whispered, stroking her cheek. "He does have a reputation he cares to uphold, and enough to do with the war effort to claim his attention in Charleston."
"I wasn't thinking of Kingsley," she replied wonderingly.
"What keeps you up at night then, darling?"
Scarlett wanted to tell him, but she was afraid he would laugh at her for being so silly when there were parents like his father who walked this earth. He had already explained away his views on the matter. And maybe she was silly for worrying about her mother's youthful years.
"It's the baby making me restless is all," she lied, nestling her cheek against his shoulder.
Spending so many hours with Rhett the past week—these days at Tara providing her the longest stretch of time with her husband, more time in fact than they had spent in each other's company for the whole of their marriage—she had discovered some interesting facts about him: he knew more about horses than her pa; he could tell stories with gusto and skill; he was an excellent dancer, light on his feet for one so large—this realization coming during an impromptu reel at the Fontaine's Mimosa, and the first and most obvious fact was his honest excitement for their baby. He wasn't as solicitous as the females in her family, or as forgiving of her bad humors, but he was undeniably glad at the prospect of becoming a father. Considering the example of his own father, she couldn't fathom why he would want to take on such a role.
Scarlett's own feelings about motherhood were ambivalent at best; hazy, indistinct things she chose to keep at a distance. The reality would come soon enough, sometime after the new year, according to Mammy, and there wasn't anything she could change by mulling over what it would do to her life. It was hard enough not to fret over what it was already doing to her body. But Rhett! He liked thinking about her condition, rubbing his massive hand over her belly, kissing her tenderly on the swelling bulge, and posing ridiculous, unanswerable questions on whether it would have her green eyes, his mother's smile or her pa's dimples. She tried to understand why a man defined by lusty appetites and a rough reputation would want to curtail his lifestyle by the demands of fatherhood, but whenever she ventured a guess or outright asked him the reason, she was met with confusion from her own mind and cryptic replies from his mouth.
In the end, his rationale meant very little to her. It was enough to know that he still found her attractive, that he wasn't resentful of his upcoming new responsibilities, and as an extra benefit, that she could successfully lie to him about certain things by blaming an errant sigh or a fleeting frown on the baby, as she did on that night, masking her restive worries about her mother behind the rise of her burgeoning motherhood.
~0~
On the tenth day of their stay at Tara, they were eating supper as a family when Gerald made an off-hand comment about the reason the hallway to the kitchen was so narrow and more serving trays couldn't be carried out at once. "Whist! It's nothing I would have noticed, mind, if Mrs. O'Hara hadn't married me and turned me house into a proper home. T'was naught but chance which gifted me Tara in the first place, I couldn't be showing a lack of gratitude by fretting over wee things like narrow passages."
"What form did your fortune take, Mr. O'Hara?" Rhett asked politely, while all of Gerald's daughters uniformly groaned. They had heard this tale one times too many.
Gerald laughed at his daughters' reactions, shushing them all the same. "Faith! Now none of that. 'Tis proud I am of how I won your inheritances. You three missies ought to be proud as well." He puffed out his chest and folded his arms, smiling broadly at Rhett. "I took Tara in a hand of poker. T'were the best four deuces ever played. Well now, the owner was not sorry to give up the place. He couldn't mix his whiskey and his cards, see, and so it went with his turn at the land. Poor fellow had no sense of destiny or love of hard work."
Rhett smiled indulgently, as if he were the older man listening to the brags of a younger buck, the reversed disparity between the two men not very striking to Scarlett. Her father had always been a heedless, hot-tempered, whimsical boy; her husband was a man, always and entirely.
"I can't say I feel sorry for the man who you handily swindled, Mr. O'Hara, and wouldn't attribute too much to luck. Poker is much more about skill than chance."
"Swindled you say? Aye, spoken from the mouth of a professional gambler, I suppose you be meaning it as a compliment."
"In comparison to your winnings, I'd categorize myself as a mere amateur."
"Oh-ho! Now don't be saying that in front of Mrs. O'Hara. Soon she'll be laid up in bed, unable to lift her head for shame if you lump me in with the likes of you. Tis hard enough as it is for her gentle heart to take a rascal like you on as her blood kin. T'would be the rebirth of both our misgivings about you, if you start speaking of me as if I could play cards better than a riverboat rat."
"Pa!" cried Scarlett. "You can't call my husband names."
"Hold your tongue, Puss. You don't know the way between us. See now, he's laughing at me words."
Scarlett didn't have to look to hear the suppressed laughter of her husband, and it wasn't really for Rhett that she was on the defense. If her father's teasing had a grain of truth to them, her deepest anxieties about her mother's opinions of Rhett were founded in real feelings. Tremulously she peeked down the table at her mother. Ellen wore her usual placid expression, but when she sensed her daughter's gaze on her, her brown eyes shone brightly for a brief moment, an unusual animation enlivening her gentle face. Scarlett stared quickly down at her lap, a curious and novel sensation in her breast, something like camaraderie with her mother.
"I wouldn't dream of equating myself with you, Mr. O'Hara," Rhett said laconically, "My wife can rest easy that I remain unoffended, and your wife can hopefully rest easy that I meant no offense by marrying her daughter."
"Well now, there be that devil of a tongue. If it gives you any comfort, I'll tell you plainly that you are too clever to be a gentleman—and I won't be holding it against you for all that you did sneak into me home and rob me of my Katie Scarlett."
"Some might say your Katie Scarlett robbed me of my freedom."
"Ah, lad, tis a freedom a man wants to be unburdened from living, even a wild, unruly buck such as yourself. After a certain age, a man wants to know whom he will be lying next to when—"
"Mr. O'Hara, I believe it is time to retire to the drawing room. The air in here is growing too stagnant," his wife smoothly cut in, and if Scarlett hadn't known her mother any better, she might not have noticed the interruption.
Carreen and Suellen, who had been following the conversation with puzzled expressions more pronounced than even Scarlett's furrow, yawned and declared themselves properly tuckered out from their day of doing absolutely nothing of use or consequence. They pushed back from the table, weaving out of the dining room. Gerald called for some toddies as he strode into the hallway after them. Suddenly it was oddly quiet. Standing up while massaging that pinch in the base of her spine, Scarlett turned to Rhett. His face was unusually grave, and his black eyes were fixed on Ellen, who had likewise remained in her chair and stared back at her son-in-law.
"I apologize for dominating the supper conversation with unsavory topics, Mrs. O'Hara," he said in that kinder tone he reserved for Scarlett's mother. "I'm afraid it has been too long since I sat regularly at a family table. I was sincere in my wish to avoid causing you grief."
"Think nothing of it, Captain Butler. Your conversation does not upset me."
"Only my existence," he softly replied.
Scarlett froze, her hand limp on the small of her back, her lungs caught with shock. She dare not look the other way. It would be easier to meet the eye of God than to find out the expression of her mother right now. The interlude between Rhett's words and Ellen's response moved with the speed of a dying heart. It was pure torture for Scarlett, and when she heard the fragile voice of her mother speak with a steely resolve, she hardly recognized it.
"You are mistaken, Captain Butler, but perhaps I owe you an apology. You remind me of someone I knew long ago. Sometimes I even think I see him in you, and when that happens, it does upset me."
A whisper of skirts on the carpet floor and the flutter of fabric in her periphery was all Scarlett heard or saw of her mother that night. Aghast and speechless, she shook her head at Rhett, who had the decency to appear sober. Some might have called his expression humble, even in Charleston.
Note: A friend pointed out I had omitted mentioning the furriness of Rhett. I amended that. I also clarified that Scarlett had buttons on her pantaloons because I think Ellen would choose the more modest option available beginning mid-1800s...Oh this was a fantasy chapter for me. To have Rhett do (partially) what we all know he wanted to do to her on their first interaction there in the library. Gerald and Rhett are fun together. Ellen and Rhett would be complicated, I think. And I have a scene in the next chapter which I had hoped to fit into this chapter but couldn't, but it is one I outlined six years ago! Hope the flow was alright. This was a tricky one. Thanks for reviews. To Guest: I can wax overly poetical with Rhett. I did try and edit him back. Cheers and happy Friday!