And indeed he loved her that night. Slowly dissolving the fatigue that grasped her till she was as awake and wanting as he had been all day. It aroused him to see her carefully made business. To see the respect she had rightfully gained from her business associates. Her presence in his arms, in their bed made him feel more fortunate than he'd ever thought he'd feel. Yes, he loved her for years, appreciated her, but never in his life did he consider her his equal. And when it came to their carnal lust it gave a new air to his conduct. As he raised the hem of her nightgown upwards he ordered her to keep her eyes open. He left the candle burning on her vanity, making the shadows in the room dance. His fingers were grazing her midline from her forehead through her sternum down her abdomen, in a slow straight path that made her blush –

"Your breasts are beautiful. I never remembered your aura to be so dark." He whispered "Do you enjoy it when I look at you like this?"

She silently nodded, hypnotized by his look –

"Talk to me, Scarlett. Do you like it when I put my fingers between your legs?" and following came a tantalizing caress she was still not used to. She swallowed hard and kept to her silence, scared from his request to have her articulate her sensations at this precise moment.

Twelve years of yearning and close observation left her variety of facial expressions known to him as if written in a manual. Yet, he was mystified by this full of life yet sad beautiful woman at his side. He no longer knew her body and soul as he proud himself before.

Few months of correspondence left him more intrigued than anything by the change in his wife. He took for granted the several changes in himself, the grief, the longing to social symbols from his childhood, but it seemed that she abandoned any if not all her past far behind her.

"All day I've been fantasizing of this moment, when I can undress you and have you all to myself. I was looking at you in that conference room thinking of how this beautiful flower you possess between your legs looked as you went through the numbers with me." He kept on slowly –

"You're lying." She gave him a fierce look, panting she added - "You were concentrated on the figures, I saw you."

"I suppose I'll just have to prove it to you when we go there tomorrow," he chuckled "I just might be able to think of two things at the same time" She was feeling a pressure being built in her and she tried to pull him to her arms, but he kept himself at arm's length, observing her reactions to his ministrations –

"You'll have to talk to me and tell me how you feel" he smiled;

"Dear God, I can't" she whispered averting her eyes. He waited till she met his gaze again –

"You can and you will. I want to give you pleasure and you'll have to talk for that to happen." His hand was rough now and she felt as if she'd explode –

"Please, Rhett…"

"Please what?" he asked slowly, kissing her with a melting power.

"Please…"

"You'll have to say it my love."

"Dear God" she murmured again at her loss of any hold "you are torturing me, I need you inside me"

"You only needed asking" and he was on top of her covering her with the warmth she so longed for. Her legs were wrapped around him pulling him to her, with total abandonment she pulled his mouth to her breast making him take it, rocking with him, crying out his name and incoherent sounds, till they both collapsed completely and utterly sated.

After gathering her breath she whispered "So that's what you meant by lover and husband?"

She was giving herself to him completely, with no reserve. Yet, something illusive kept her away from him, as if she was at arm's length.

He was surprised when he heard her voice –

"Will you tell me, Rhett, of your times in bed with other woman?"

If a cat had got his tongue (literally) he wouldn't have been more shocked at her request.

"Why?"

She turned to him and he noticed the genuine smile in her eyes "Oh, I don't want to hear of Belle, tell me of a woman that made you shiver, let's say, twenty years ago."

"Why?" he was smiling now, amused at her boldness.

She blushed but kept to her smile "I just want you to. But you don't have to; I just thought it would be fun. You certainly told me IT'S fun before we were together, and that you are told that you have a way with women..."

He chuckled and leaned backwards taking her with him to the back board of the bed "So, if I understand you correctly, you want to know of my sexual adventures as a young man?"

"Oh, you are just mean and hateful. You are doing your best to make me feel embarrassed, aren't you? Well, sir, it won't work! It's not me who has been with hundreds of women in every port in the east coast and England. I'm still a simple country girl who simply wants some entertainment."

The fit of laughter that got him was uncontrollable "Simple?! Simple you say?!"

"Besides, you are the one who told me to say what I want or think."

"What are you thinking, my dear?" he asked becoming all serious.

She paused "Frankly?"

"Yes, only frankly."

"I think that there are so many shades of you that I don't know. Why not start with the fun part? Besides, since I will never experience such things personally, nor do I wish to" she added quickly "it's intriguing."

He was thinking of her and the past year in which she had been alone and faithful to their marriage "But you could have. If you wished to, I mean. This year, at least. Not that I wouldn't mind. It would have maddened me."

She stopped him with her hand and looked at him sternly "Rhett, I didn't, and I wouldn't even think of it."

"But you've had offers." He was stating something he wished she'd deny, but she didn't.

"Well, I wouldn't consider any. Not as long as there was hope."

He was contemplating whether to investigate these advances she's had but something in her voice made him put his curiosity aside for the time being-

"You had hope?"

"Yes."

"I had none."

"That's what gave me hope. If you had gone ahead with your life, I dare say I would have lost my nerve. Being as it was, and saddened as I was it gave me hope that you did give a damn, in fact so much that you can't even come down to keep the gossip down as you promised."

He moved at unease with her admission and her mention of his words.

"I will never understand myself though." She said "There I was, at sixteen, Ashley telling me he doesn't love me, he goes and marries the love of his life, and I clinging for years to a love that never existed but in a mind of a fourteen year old, working harder than a field hand and insisting that something is ..." she paused "And here you were, leaving me at my darkest hour, seconds after my best friend had died, throwing my declarations of love, yet again, and I deciding that there was hope." He was silent. She felt him harden – "At least this time I was right."

"I'm sorry, Scarlett. At the time I really didn't care. I never thought how ruthless it was."

She smiled and he heard it in her voice "You once mentioned a phrase in Latin regarding jealousy. I suppose that made you ruthless for years. The worse tarnish to my reputation, well except the India and Archie episode came from you. What you told my aunts back then…"

"And yet you have me? You give me all you have slaved for on a platter of gold?"

She ignored his words and kept on talking - "I remember the night when I came to Tara. There was nothing to eat. The following day I went walking to Twelve Oaks, to see if there was something I could salvage. There were some radishes in the darkies quarters gardens. I ate them and lay there on the ground, vomiting for a time that seemed like hours, with an infected foot. I should have had no hope for anything. Mother was dead, Pa crazy. Yet I rose and limped back home, and the rest you know. Hope is a tricky thing."

He was listening to her. He knew of her mother's death and her father's madness, but she never took the time to tell him what had happened that made her as hardened as she was after the war.

"You chose your battles, Rhett. At that point I had no choice. For that I hated life and the world for the longest time. I could have left Melly in Atlanta before the siege. But I didn't on account of that silly promise I gave Ashley to care for her. He was a bastard, wasn't he?" She did not pause for long and continued "Well, when Melly died I could have sank to pit of despair, abandoning my children emotionally to their fate, or gone on without you as if you never existed. I chose not to, not as long as I had hope with you. You see, if you couldn't face me, it meant you cared. Then there were the letters, of course, with my aunt, confirming what I had suspected. With Wade and Ella – there was light all the time though" the last words were softer.

As she became sleepy she drowsily said "I'll make you tell me. I'm not going to be the only one who talks."

The following days he saw the light she talked of in her and in her children. They were constantly laughing. There was an intimacy between them, to which they gladly brought him in. When Rhett suggested they get some more help for the evening so they could host the pouring guests coming to see him, and peek at the Butler's family, Scarlett insisted on their privacy and refused it. "The major cleaning can be done in the morning", she insisted and she would suffice in Prissy's rough organization of the house afterwards. In fact, each evening, no matter how many guests would be in the parlor, at seven o'clock she'd rise and call Ella to their daily practice at the piano, hinting the good ladies who never stepped through the door over a year to take their leave.

The only exception was with Henry Hamilton who would be a weekly guest in their table. The aging lawyer would come once a week in the afternoon, before Rhett returned from the construction site and sit with her in solitude in the study, one afternoon he found them walking in the garden arm in arm with Ella and a friend of hers with them. Henry was being cordial with him, nothing less nothing more, but she seemed obtuse to the tension between the two men she loved.

During that first week she surprised him by not attending the site or the bank leaving the entire project at his hands, claiming that she'd return the following week.

One afternoon she was delayed with Ella and Rhett found Henry playing Chess with Wade. He sent the boy on some pretext to find him a book, and took the time to address the matter –

"You aren't happy with my return."

"It's not for me to be happy or unhappy about." Answered Henry not in the least intimidated by the tall man in front of him – "All I know is that if you leave again it will be much more difficult to gather the pieces."

"You've done that?"

"No, Scarlett has. With her two hands and ten fingers she healed herself, her children and even my sill sister and other nephew. But she is not unbreakable, and she has been on the top of the world since you wrote you'd meet her in New York, and in a pit of despair when she returned, that is until you wrote you'd come. She is one of a kind, I'd hate to see her hurt again."

"I'm not a child, Rhett, Uncle Henry, and I'm not that breakable" – none of them saw her come in. They both seemed embarrassed –

"Don't you dare try and excuse yourselves, either of you." She demanded hotly as she saw the two man move with unease – "I don't mind if you speak of me behind my back. I had the cook prepare a fabulous rooster I intend for all of us to enjoy this evening with a special apple and pecan pie for desert, so please, try not to ruin that."