Chapter 5

Poison and Wine

Scarlett was surprised to hear the murmur of voices when she walked through her door later that night—surprised and worried. She undid her cloak with slow deliberate jerks, straining to recognize either voice. She could think of only one person she would be more loathe to see than the man she had just left, and something told her that this midnight caller was that very person. She hung up her cloak, her gut clenching as the certainty of her guest's identity settled upon her. The certainty was as cold as the wind outside. Her hands combed through her hair and down her dress as she walked down the hallway and when she stepped into the doorway of the back parlor, her body froze.

"Ashley what on earth are you doing here so late?"

Those grey eyes looked in her direction, none of that familiar remoteness in them. They scanned her with an intensity that nearly undid her cool, probably seeing everything she wished to conceal. But then the aloofness sprang back into them and Ashley spoke.

"It wasn't so late when I arrived, Scarlett. Apparently I arrived only minutes after you had left." He glanced down at Wade, who sat on the sofa staring at his hands. "Wade and I started talking about books, and well, time just slipped away from us I suppose."

"Books?"

"One book, mostly."

"You've been talking about one book for four hours?"she asked skeptically. Scowling she walked into the room and slid down into the nearest armchair. "I couldn't talk about four books for one hour."

Wade finally looked up, chewing on a smile the same way his uncle was. "It's a fascinating book, mother. I've never read one quite like it."

The two men exchanged a meaningful glance that made Scarlett suddenly want to jump over to the bookshelf across the room and throw its whole lot of books into the grate. She'd never understood Wade or Ashley's love of novels—they were a complete waste of time to someone so lacking in imagination and full of practicality as she was. And after the glaring, gritty reality of the last few hours with Rhett she was too tired and on edge to bother pretending interest in anything pretend.

"Fascinating or not Wade Hampton, it is time for you to go to bed."

Her tone left no room for debate. Wade stood up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I am glad you are home, mother," he whispered before pulling back. "I...I worried." He stared down at her for a moment before mumbling a goodbye to Ashley and disappearing into the dim hall. Scarlett kept her focus on the doorway, steeling herself for whatever had prompted Ashley to make this unusual and unwelcome late-night visit. She might not understand much about books or the people who read them, but she did understand enough about men to know Ashley hadn't decided to make a call solely for Wade's company. Sighing, she stood up, brushing past Ashley without a sidelong glance, and walking over to the fireplace, picked up the poker and began breaking apart the blackened logs. She heard Ashley softly shuffle behind her and at last she turned around. His head was slightly bowed, his eyes on the dying fire. And although she wasn't certain, his cheeks almost seemed flushed.

"Wade and you seem to be on friendly terms again," she said, setting the poker back in its stand.

" We had a good conversation."

"About a book?"

"The book provided the framework."

"The what?" Scarlett asked, that knot in her stomach tightening.

"The framework," he repeated. "The book provided the framework for telling Wade about our past."

"Our past—what do you mean our past?"

Finally Ashley leveled his gaze directly at her. "I told Wade everything—everything he asked about and hadn't already figured out for himself, that is."

Scarlett experienced that sensation she had felt only a few times before in her life: a deadening numbness in her chest that she knew would momentarily give way to a burning pain. The wind had blown out of her lungs and when it returned it would hurt to breathe. She stared at Ashley without seeing him, rage and shock blinding her as it was numbing her. And then the anger and pain burst through the surprise.

"You had no right to tell Wade about my past! You had no right to—How dare you Ashley! How dare you tell my son my secrets."

"Our secrets Scarlett—and before you throw me out of the house, let me assure you that I did not intend on telling him anything other than how sorry I was for the other day. But he is not a child. He knew most of the story, most of our story, before I had even opened my mouth. He began the conversation."

"And you should have ended it!"

Unphased Ashley nodded. "Perhaps, but he had already pieced together what he had heard but not understood as a boy. Things he had been too afraid to ever tell you, or me, or anyone he had learned. Taunts kids would tease him about at school. Rumors that had been whispered within his earshot. Arguments he'd heard between Rhett and you. Almost two decades' worth of suspicions about his mother and his uncle. He even told me that at your supper tonight you had confirmed that yesterday was not the first time we had kissed."

Scarlett ran her hand across her brow, her temples suddenly throbbing. "I did say something, but I never thought..." The anger was fading, shame and that pain, that decade's long pain aching across her body. She turned wounded eyes up to Ashley. "Wade knows everything?"

"I couldn't lie to him, especially after what he saw yesterday, especially after what happened in the bar last night."

"People know about that?"

"Gossip and construction—Atlanta's two most bustling industries." Ashley's blank expression cracked some under Scarlett's strained one. "I couldn't lie to him, Scarlett, but no one can know the entire truth. No one, not even you or me, can know that."

Crushed from so much more than rage, she stumbled over to the couch and sat down. Ashley followed and sitting down beside her, tenderly took her hands into his. She wanted to fling him off, but in her misery, she couldn't find the energy to even glare at him. And his hands closed ever so slightly around hers.

"Don't let this be the thing that defeats you, my dear. Don't let your son's knowledge of our mistakes be your undoing. Wade has a very good head on his shoulders. He seemed more relieved than anything. He will not think any less of you. He worships you—as any man who has ever known you inevitably does." Ashley smiled softly. "Do you know the first thing Wade wanted to know about?"

Scarlett shook her head, hating the growing comfort she was finding in Ashley's hushed, sweet accent and his warm, gentle touch.

"Whether or not you ever loved his father."

"Charlie?"

"Charlie."

"What did you tell him?"

"The truth, or a version of it. I told him that his father loved you very much and that caught up in the fervor of the war, you had impetuously accepted his proposal. But that you hardly ever knew him and certainly never had any time to fall in love with him."

"What else did he ask?"

Ashley's grey eyes glistened and his voice dropped. "He wanted to know why I had never asked you to marry me."

"Did you tell him you had?"

"I told that asking would be futile as I have always known what the answer would be."

"Is that all?"

"Wade doesn't know every detail, Scarlett. I'm not a complete fool. No matter what you believe. I have some pride left, however little it may be."

"Is that all that you told him Ashley?"

"I didn't tell him that I asked you the day of Melly's funeral—no. Nor did I tell him what your answer really was."

Scarlett wrenched her hands from Ashley's grip. "I didn't ask you what you didn't tell him. I asked you what you did tell him."

"Do you remember dear? Do you remember what you said to me when I did ask? I know I shall never forget it. You said that for as long as you could remember you had wanted two things—money and me, and now that you had both things, you didn't want either one of them. You only wanted—"

"What did you tell Wade?"

Ashley leaned back and sighed. "I told him that like Emma—"

"Emma? Who's Emma?"

"She's a character in the book we were discussing."

"The book?"

"We didn't lie. We did discuss a book for much of the evening."

"Books? It's always books and fantasy with you Ashley. Now tell me once and for all, what did you say to Wade?"

"I told him that you have never wanted what you could have. You have only ever wanted what you could not have."

Scarlett jumped up, balling her fists and heat peppering across her cheeks. Her eyes flashed. After everything she had done for Ashley, after everything she had sacrificed for him. This was how he repaid her. This was how he showed her what she meant to him—by maligning her to her only son. The only man in her life who had not abandoned or disappointed her. Ashley, Rhett, Gerald, Frank, Charlie, her beaux from so long ago—all had left her, all had wandered off in search of glory and dreams and things she never would or could understand. Even Will, steady, strong Will had begun to fade away, his leg finally claiming his health, prosperity and children aging him. And in one conversation Ashley had stripped away the years of trust and love that she had built with her son. No matter what Ashley said, Wade would never look at her the same. She had never wanted to be worshipped. She had wanted to be loved. Her dark days of mourning for Rhett had opened up her mind to some understanding of what she had always wanted and never really had—love.

It had always alluded her, that shadow in her dreams just beyond the mist. The footsteps at her back that were from a phantom. That had been the biggest blow, the gust that had nearly knocked her down for good; the sickening realization that with Rhett such a love might once have been possible. That he could have known her, that he had known her, and yet he had still loved her. He had been cruel. He had been callous. But he had never worshiped her. He had never made her pretend to be anyone but who she was.

Against her will, against her secret vow made only an hour ago, came the unbidden memories from tonight; the forbidden remembrance of what Rhett's kisses had felt like upon her skin, her mouth, her body. What it had been to lose herself in another's embrace. What it had been to lose herself in his embrace. It had been so many years—years that had instantly evaporated away as the dew before the sunrise when Rhett pulled her to him and kissed her. The flame had grown hotter, their bodies had melted together. She had remembered things she had sworn to forget forever. She was remembering things again, as if they were forever.

Scarlett did not realize how suddenly and dramatically her face had changed. How there now glowed an intoxicating blush on her skin, a fire—not of anger or shame—but of passion that burned in her gaze. There was a fierce beauty to her expression that made Ashley's heart still. He had only ever seen her look so wild and lovely once before—that day so long ago when he had almost surrendered to his lust for her and taken her on the cold, hard clay of Tara's orchard. Drawn to her, he stood before her. And then cold recollection doused his unspeakable desire. Her heart was no longer his for the asking—her body no longer his for the taking. In his disillusionment, his mask fully removed, he said, "I wonder Scarlett, now that you have Rhett, now that he has had you—do you still want him?"

It took Scarlett a minute for the full meaning of Ashley's words to sink in, for his voice to break through the spell of her reverie. But when it finally did, she felt the sting. She glared up at him, that warmth on her face fracturing once more into sharp wrath.

"Get out! Get out of my house! How dare you say such things to me? How dare you say such things about me to my son! What I want and who I want are of no concern to you! Get out! Get out!"

'Scarlett—I'm sorry. I don't know what came over—"

"Get away from me Ashley! Get away!"

She yelled until she could no longer see him, yelled until she could no longer hear him inside her house, yelled until she was hoarse, yelled until it was no longer yelling, but a gasping sob, until Wade and Ella staggered into the parlor, tousled hair and sleepy eyes, and found their mother crumpled onto the floor and crying. She felt Wade lift her up into his arms, wanting to scold him for treating her like a child and still unable to do anything but sink into his cradling hold.

Quietly she wept into her son's shoulder as he quietly told his sister a story, some of it true, some of it false. She heard Ella ask about Rhett, about Ashley, about why her mother was crying. Her daughter's voice was as soft as her young fingers combing through her hair, grazing along the side of her cheek. Her son's as sure and steady as the lies he was spinning. Her sobs drifted away. Ella's questions and Wade's answers faded into the same void as the grandfather clock down the hall struck two o'clock. In this chiming silence, Scarlett sat up, scooting off her son and leaning against the worn, plush backboard of the sofa. Her bloodshot eyes swiveled from her son to her daughter, her two children born not from love or even lust, but spite and necessity, unfortunate inevitabilities, burdens and mouths to feed for the first several years of their lives. Now they were the only two people left in the world who truly cared for her.

"Come on," she said, standing up and straightening her spine. "It's time for bed."

~/~/~/~

Scarlett knew she couldn't have been asleep for very long when something woke her up. She shot up and blinked into the darkness. Her room was still coated in the texture of night and the streets beyond the gates were silent. Her house was silent. She was ready to fall back down onto her pillow when she heard it again—someone or something was moving around upstairs. She threw off the covers and, fumbling in her haze of fatigue and fear, grabbed the first hard thing her fingers clasped, a wooden hairbrush. She tiptoed out into the hallway, clutching the hairbrush like a knife and peered into her children's rooms, dread rising when she saw both Wade and Ella nestled under their blankets. A muffled thud came from down the hall and she flipped her head toward the sound. Her heart dropped as something more like panic seized her. The sounds were definitely coming from Rhett's room.

That room had remained untouched, uncared for, unseen for the last several years. Her throat dried up and she could barely swallow as she shuffled the few paces down the hall. She noticed a silver light streaking through the bottom of the door. Shakily she turned the knob and pushed the door open. The hinges creaked loudly from underuse. Her eyes scanned the shadowed room and the hairbrush fell to her side.

"What are you doing here?"

The cigar butt flared brightly and the whites of his eyes glistened in the moonlight—the silver light shining ominously through the open drapes. Rhett came toward her and stopped only a few inches from where she stood. He took another long drag and looked her over.

"I might ask you the same thing."

"This is my house."

"This is my room."

"Not anymore," she said, folding her arms tightly across her chest.

"Nothing's been moved, or cleaned for that matter."

He swiped his finger along the door frame. Scarlett watched the cobwebs fall slowly to the floor, the strands floating to their feet. She took a deep breath and looked back up at him.

"Why are you here? You promised me you were going to leave town."

Rhett gazed back at her, making her feel exposed. He lowered the cigar from his mouth and started flicking the embers against his thumb, laughing softly as he shook his head.

"What's so funny?"

"Irony, my pet—or perhaps you might call it justice."

"Rhett, I'm not in the mood for your riddles."

The smile fell from his face as the cigar was raised once more to his lips. "Do you know you are the first woman to ever leave my bed before I did?"

They had both been whispering, but at his words, Scarlett glanced around her empty hallway, worried that their voices had carried.

"You can't just go around talking about things like that," she seethed, pushing him back and closing the door behind her. He glanced down at her hands, her palms lingering just a moment too long on his chest. She immediately dropped her arms and stepped back, hitting the door. Rhett smirked and reaching to her side, threw his cigar into a lamp. The flame lit as the kerosene and dust crackled and snapped sparks into the air. He pushed his hands deep into his pockets and shrugged at her, drawling in that annoyingly smooth voice, half mocking, half serious.

"I wonder how different our lives might have been, though, had we gone around talking about things like, er, that," Her wrath and humiliation were keeping her tongue twisted in as many knots as her stomach was and at her stony silence, Rhett continued, "Despite what you may think, Scarlett, I didn't invite you over to my hotel room tonight to seduce you."

"Don't flatter yourself. I'm not a silly girl anymore."

"No, only a silly woman."

"What do you want Rhett?" she snapped. "You didn't just come here to scare the wits out of me. Do you even know what would have happened if Wade had been the one to wake up from you clanking around in here?"

"I imagine he wouldn't have gotten the jump on me that he did last night."

"Why are you here? You promised me you were going to leave Atlanta."

Rhett sighed and without answering, turned around to the bureau behind him, its drawers already half-open and a pile of clothes and letters beside it on the floor. He rummaged around for a few seconds before finding what he was looking for: his hands stilled and a rich softness came over his features, so rich Scarlett could still perceive it in the uneven lamplight. He lifted a silver frame from the belly of the drawer and walked slowly back over in front of Scarlett, his gaze never wavering from the picture of Bonnie.

"I had a smaller photograph with me, but they took it when they arrested me. I don't know what happened to it." He smeared the dust from the glass and smiled down at the smiling image of their little girl. "She was so beautiful."

"She was," Scarlett said, a sensation of relief and sadness spreading over her.

Rhett glanced back up, his eyes darker and his face older. "I know you think you want me to leave Scarlett, but there is a piece of you that is hoping I won't."

Scarlett wanted to contradict him, but she couldn't find the words. They stuck somewhere in her throat, lost in that swell that had risen with the remembrance of Bonnie, with this room, with him. Why wouldn't he just let her be? Rhett had turned his attention back to Bonnie and Scarlett knew she had to leave, leave before he made her forget for the second time tonight how much she hated him. Her hand enclosed the doorknob, her body began to turn and her feet to lift, when Rhett said, "Do you know what I envy about you the most Scarlett?"

She stopped and looked at him. "Envy about me?"

"Yes," he said lightly, frowning at her. "I never really wanted a home, but I learned to want one. Not Tara, nothing like that behemoth, but a home. Even the most hard-hearted bastard in prison had some home he wanted to go back to, somewhere he wanted to see again before he died. I couldn't think of a single place I wanted to see again. I've been without a home for most of my life, and I don't know if I can call the home I grew up in a home. The minute I left, I never wanted to go back. It was always a hell on earth for me, in spite of my wealth, in spite of even my mother."

Scarlett had never heard Rhett talk about his childhood, had never really even wondered about it, but for the first time in her life she wondered now, wondered what could have happened to Rhett as a boy to make him the man who stood before her.

"Rhett..."

"I've always loved to wander, but at a certain age, a man grows tired of wandering. I am. I'm tired of looking for things that don't actually exist," he paused and took a step closer to her. "I'm not telling you this for my own sake, Scarlett. I'm doing it for you."

"For me?"

"Yes, so that one day when you wonder what happened you will know why and when it did happen."

"When what happened?"

"When I gave you the choice I should have given you years ago."

"Choice?" Her voice trembled and when Rhett raised his hand to her cheek, her body trembled.

"Choose to love me Scarlett. Choose to be my wife, and not just in name. Choose me because I am choosing you, even though I've realized I've never really had a choice."

Her heart cried out. Everything inside her, everything she was made of wanted to say yes, but something, pride, anger, something that was not part of her love for him—something bigger than herself or him stopped her. She twisted away from Rhett and spun away from the door.

"How? Are we supposed to forget the last six years? The last sixteen years?"

"No, we can't do that, but we can move forward."

"Move forward? Move forward? You told me we couldn't start over. You told me you didn't believe in putting things back together."

"I don't believe in fixing the past, but I have to believe in building a future. And despite what I may have said six years ago, I want to build something with you. Because if I can't build it with you, then I can't build it with anyone."

"Build? Build?" There was something wrong, Scarlett could feel it. She may not understand what it was, but instinct stronger than reason told her there was something more going on. There always was with him. His words from long ago came back to her suddenly, words spoken before so many other more terrible words had been shared between them.

"What do you really want Rhett?"

"I thought for the first time in our marriage I was being clear," he teased, although no amusement gleamed in his eye.

"You once told me that we are alike and that you never do anything without an ulterior motive." An idea was scratching its way to the surface of her brain, clawing up from some untapped insight into the man who was most similar to herself. Her eyes flitted to the picture of Bonnie and suddenly she felt sick. She clutched at her belly as nausea roiled in her gut.

"A baby," she gasped. "That's what you want, isn't it? All this talk of a home, of building something. You want another baby. And you thought you could come back to me, and, and use me like some brood mare? You thought I'd throw myself at you like some desperate fool?"

He surveyed her, unmoving but for his roving eyes. When he spoke a cold malice laced his voice.

"You never will understand anything but money and business, will you? Never understand anyone—not even yourself."

"Oh, for once Rhett, I think I understand you. I understand you perfectly. You do want another baby. You do. I know you do, but why now? I begged you to stay. I begged you to have another baby with me and you told me, no thank you. You brushed me off like I'd offered you dinner and you weren't hungry! Well, now it's my turn..." she ended unexpectedly, her rant fading pathetically away as iron-like knives cleaved into her heart and mind. She dug her fingers into her nightgown, pinching at her stomach.

"Oh, no, oh no. No, no, no," she moaned. "You can't leave, can you? Not yet, not for a few months at least. I'm...I could be with a baby already and I know if you leave town people will talk. People always talk. Everything—all I've done will go up in smoke."

Panic swam in her eyes and she stared up at Rhett, pleading for him to tell her she was wrong, praying she was wrong. But he looked back at her, silent and unyielding. The bruises on his face mocking her for forgetting how dangerous and unpredictable he had always been, for forgetting that he would do anything to win.

"You planned this all along, didn't you? You made me believe you cared something for me again, made me believe that I could love you again—but you don't want me. No matter what you say, you never loved me as much as you loved Bonnie. And that's who you really want right now. You want another Bonnie!"

He came toward her with a sudden savagery. And before she could react, he had grabbed her by the shoulders and propelled her back up against the door. The picture crashed to the floor. Her body went rigid. Too angry and ashamed to even fight him off, she glared defiantly up into his sharp, rough face.

"By God yes, I do want a baby Scarlett, but not for the reasons you think. I don't want another Bonnie. I'm not a fool. I want a baby because I want a home, a family. I want a wife—I want someone other than a whore to care if I fall off the face of the earth and am throw into a pit again. And if I could start over with someone else, I would. But I can't Scarlett. You're going to believe what you will, you always have, but I have never loved anyone as much as I loved you. I don't want to love you, but I do. I always will."

Rhett spun away from her and Scarlett stayed stretched up against the door. Her head and heart went round and round. She had finally understood something about Rhett, something he hadn't wanted her to know. A sense of triumph swirled around the storm of disbelief. She watched him pick up the broken frame and carefully extract the photograph from beneath the shattered glass. He tossed the frame back onto the floor and walked back towards her.

"I never did like that frame," he said lazily.

"I...I bought it for you."

He nodded, studying Bonnie's picture once more. "I know. You have awful taste. Nothing's ever going to change that." Rhett glanced up. "Some things have changed though."

It took Scarlett a minute, maybe more, but a sad smile crept over her lips—mirroring her husband's.

Note: Thanks for the prods and nods. My health is finally on the up, really this time. So I hope to write more again.

Chris and Anna- I see you have finished and updated a bunch of stories, so I will have to catch up. And Helen, you updated, too. Which makes me happy and I will have to spend some time reading in the next little while. And all others, thanks for still being interested...I hope.

I do love the band the Civil Wars and was heartbroken, albeit impersonally so, when they split up. But Poison and Wine is one of my all-time favorite songs. And I think most of the lyrics can be applied to this post-cannon story of mine.

Also since this one is finished (yippie, I hate unfinished stories) I will move on to A Bout de Souffle. I'm not going to give myself a deadline for that update, or my P&P story, but sooner rather than later.

And I can't remember which edition, but there is an edition of GWTW out there with a preface which contrasts Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary and Scarlett. I wanted to do Tolstoy, but since there wasn't even a French edition by this year in my fanfiction, I couldn't really do that, so I went with my all-time favorite French novel. It's the most beautifully written book I've ever read. And here are some quotes I love and thought went well with this chapter:

"She was not happy-she never had been. Whence came this insufficiency in life-this instantaneous turning to decay of everything on which she leaned? But if there were somewhere, a being strong and beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of exaltation and refinement, a poet's heart in an angel's form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegiac epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? Ah! How impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight."

"Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."

― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Cheers.