Thank you once more for the lovely reviews, and your thoughts and ideas. As per request, I didn't just skip over to Europe with Rose ...you were right, poor Beau deserves his due. As does poor Wade, who is also having a bad day. Hope you enjoy.

Wade walked into the comfortable brownstone on East Battery an hour later than was his want. His wife came out of the parlor to greet him, her mint-colored walking dress accentuating her pretty, light figure.

"You're late," she said, her blue-green eyes reflecting concern. It was a rare occurrence, and never without a good reason.

"Don't ask,' he said, kissing her. He felt the fatigue of the evening start to recede before the familiar comforts of his home.

"The kids are already sleeping,' Phoebe said. She handed him a glass of wine. "Sit and tell me about ….whatever it was that kept you. In the meantime, I'll have Molly warm up supper."

She rang for the maid, and then sat down at the dinner table across from him, fixing her eyes on him expectantly.

"I went to see Rose," he said, and from his tone, she could tell it had not been a visit of pleasure. He drank a sip of the dark liquid, gathering his thoughts. She waited him out without showing any signs of impatience. "Dad asked me to see her. Because ….well….you were correct."

"I usually am," she laughed, but there was compassion in her face for his obvious distress. "What was I correct about?"

"She's not in love with Beau."

"Of course not," she agreed. "I knew from the first moment she mentioned her cousin. She was much too dismissive to be as disinterested as she tried to appear."

"Well, I didn't see it," Wade said heavily. "Or I would never have let it come this far. Dad wants to ride over to the Wilkes' tomorrow morning and formally cry off, but I just can't bear the thought of Beau finding out so officially, and so coldly. He's been so….happy these last few weeks. And Dad …well, let's just say he didn't exactly sound broken-hearted. I understand that he thinks of Thad as a son, and has had a rather …..checkered history with the Wilkes, and of course Rose shouldn't marry Beau under those circumstances. But I can't help but feel for Beau as well. "

Molly arrived with supper, which she placed before Wade with sparse movements and a smile.

"Odd, that Rose accepted him," Phoebe wondered aloud, after Molly had left the room. "Or that she couldn't see that he loves her, too, that wild cousin of hers. Every time he looked at her I wanted to laugh, because he couldn't seem to make up his mind whether he wanted to shake her, or eat her up with his eyes. " She shook her head. "Poor communication between all interested parties."

"Now that is an understatement," Wade said, in between chewing his roast and yams. "But honestly, communication has never been the strong suit of my family. Mother and Dad are much better than they used to be, but Rose ….well, Rose keeps her cards close to her chest. "

"She's but a youn'un, as my Daddy used to say," Phoebe smiled, putting her chin on her hands and watching him. "She'll learn."

"Dad got quite a bit worse before he got better,' Wade replied, somewhat morosely. "She's a lot like him, you know, for all that she looks like Mother. All shiny surfaces and deflection."

"Ah, it isn't the lack of skills, necessarily. That young man …Thad …actually explains himself quite well when he's not wound up," Phoebe said. "I sat next to him at dinner the first night he came, you know, and asked him this and that out of curiosity."

"What did you think?"

"He's much more experienced than he lets on. And has a nice way of seeing people as - just people. There's not too many who'd talk to the house staff as he does, as if he were one of them. Yet they took no liberties. Makes me wish I'd have gotten over my silly preconceptions sooner. We could have seen more of him, when we were still in Houston." She shook her head at herself, and added teasingly, "And he's got the look of one that likes and understands women. That never hurts."

"He didn't understand Rose."

"Oh, most men have blinders on where they love. Didn't your father? Quite a discerning man himself, you'll agree, but if half of what you tell me about your parent's history is accurate, he misread your mother more than once when he should have known better."

"Remember that I get most of my insights from Rose, who wasn't even around, and should probably be burned at the stake!" He sighed. "No, you're right. Dad and Thad can both talk to anyone at their level, Duke or chimney sweep, and have an excellent sense of people, except when it matters. " He pushed his empty plates aside, and chuckled. "So you liked him? Thad, I mean. Perhaps I should grow my hair longer as well…."

She punched him on the shoulder. "I like your hair just the way it is."

"Good. I was starting to get jealous." he teased.

"Don't be silly," she admonished lightly. "I am perfectly happy with the husband I have, thank you very much. I for one am not made for such intense drama….or whatever it is Rose and Thad have going on between them. It seems to bring more unhappiness than anything, and not just for them." She kissed him. "Now go ride over to Beau and tell him about Rose. If it must be said, it should come from someone who loves him. But give Chuck a kiss before you go, I promised him you would so he'd go to sleep."

He clasped her hand gratefully. He kissed his son, and peeked in on the baby. Then he returned into the night.

~~oo~~

An hour later, Wade sat with an increasingly drunk Beau at a bar two blocks from the townhouse the Wilkes were occupying. The hour was late, and it was a weeknight, so most of the regular patrons had already left. Wade had made several attempts to encourage his cousin to drink up and come home, but Beau seemed determined to linger, and was becoming increasingly incoherent. He had seen Beau intoxicated before, over the course of several years at Harvard, but rarely to this extent. He sighed, and tried not to let his discomfort show on his face.

"I still can't believe she would do this to me," Beau mumbled.

Wade sighed again. He had stressed Rose's youth by the way of explanation, but of course Beau had immediately suspected there was more to the tale than he'd let on. As he played with his drink, Wade tried unsuccessfully to forget the expression on his friend's face when he had first arrived. Thankfully, Ashley Wilkes had been out. Wade would have hated to explain himself to both of them.

"Has something happened? Is Rose all right?" Beau had asked, swift fear rising in his eyes when he caught sight of his cousin.

"She's fine. However, what I have to tell you pertains to her." He'd paused, trying to gather himself for what he knew he must say. "My father intended to tell you tomorrow, but I didn't want you to find out like ….."

"He's changed his mind about allowing the match," Beau had guessed, with sudden wrath. "Why, I'll show him….." But he'd stopped, as Wade shook his head.

Beau had paled even further. "Rose is crying off?" He'd paused, trying helplessly to wrap his mind around this information. "There's someone else, isn't there," he'd said, finally. "That obnoxious cousin of hers. If I ever get my hands on him again I'll…."

"For the time being, she's to go to Europe for medical school," Wade had interrupted gently. He'd wished vainly he were somewhere, anywhere but here. His inherently just nature had compassion for all parties, but he couldn't help but fault Thad – the eldest and, as Phoebe had correctly pointed out, the most experienced – more heavily than his young sister, or his almost equally naïve friend.

He had dragged him to this bar, and tried his best to draw some of the poison from the wound. "I'm not sure Rose knows what or whom she wants right now," he'd said softly. "I certainly didn't at her age, so I don't rightly know why a girl should. It'll do her good to get away for a while, and sort herself out, like we did at Harvard. At any rate, she's the kind of person that needs a purpose, and she's always professed an interest in medicine." He cast about for anything else he could say, but his mind blanked. He lightly touched his cousin's shoulder. "Beau. I know it's much too early to hear me, but you may come to be glad of this night's work. I love Rose dearly, and she's striking to look at, but she isn't my idea of a comfortable wife. Got too much of Dad in her. You remember how he was, when we were still living in Atlanta. One never knew what to make of him, or what he really felt, and that rarely works out well when two people are trying to build a life together."

Even as he said them, Wade knew the words would prove futile – as futile as it would have been to warn away the admirers of Scarlett O'Hara at sixteen. His thoughts turned briefly to that damsel, whose living representation he had just visited, and recalled one of her conquests in particular- that long-lost father that he knew so little about. Who, unlike Beau, had died before he could learn that his dream had been naught but a mirage.

"To Halifax with all the O'Hara women!" Wade thought, borrowing his mother's favorite epithet.

Then he sighed, and settled down on his chair for what he knew would be a very long night.

~~oo~~

Roughly a week later and more than one thousand miles away from the Butler residence in Charleston, Belle Watling was sitting in the large, comfortable kitchen of the main house of her son's ranch. Its style was distinct from the ornate town house and office building he maintained in Houston, with furniture carved from local mesquite wood of rose-colored hues, colorful carpets and woven baskets he'd brought back from the Alabama-Coushatta reservation and dotted all over the house. It was a warm, friendly, if somewhat impersonal space.

She observed her son walk in, obviously dressed to go out.

"Off to see that pretty widow, Mrs. Schafer, again?" his mother asked. "Now that you've run outta kindling to chop and fences to mend.

He didn't answer, and she hadn't expected him to. He had never confided in her in the eight years that they had shared living quarters, but it was impossible for someone of her past to miss the frozen look on his face, or the tension in his frame. She hoped the tall woman with whom he'd had a long-standing arrangement would be able to give him some comfort, if that was indeed where he was headed.

"You never did go in much for my sort," she mused, almost as if speaking to herself. "I suppose growin' up with us made you see us for what we are."

"Yes," he said, with the twist to his lips that he'd been wearing since he'd returned from Charleston. "As women."

She sighed. "Andres brought the mail. It's on the table." She had never learned to read, and relied on her son for her correspondence. She watched him as he sifted through the pile, and suddenly start in surprise.

"I'll be out," he said, briefly, that one letter in his hand. Minutes later, she heard the sounds of a horse at sharp trot fading into the distance.

~~oo~~

He tied the grey gelding to the post by the lake. It was fairly warm, but too early in the year for the migrating egrets, herons and sandpipers to have returned from their winter quarters. The shore was empty except for a flock of hardy sparrows begging for breadcrumbs. He wondered briefly, if he should go elsewhere, to avoid contaminating this peaceful hiding spot with what he was sure would be the content of this letter. But the emotional exhaustion of the past few weeks tugged on his limbs, filling them with lead, keeping him in place. He attempted vainly to cram his mind with the serenity of the soft waves over the silky water. Finally, he knelt down, and with firm, precise movements, opened the letter. For a moment, the words threatened to swim before his eyes.

Thad, it began, in his uncle's unmistakable script,

It is perhaps a bad omen that my pen hesitates already, my mind imagining this paper crumpled up and tossed aside before you've gotten past the first line. We are both proud to our detriment, although in many ways that censure applies most heavily to myself.

Rose will not marry Beau. Like Napoleon, I will attempt to lead with my strongest arsenal, and hope it will be sufficient to capture your attention for what is to follow. I won't burden you with the long-winded tale of puerile espionage that led to the discovery of her motives, but suffice it to say Rose was aware Cherry had gone to your room that night, albeit not how briefly. That has now been changed, and with it, her sentiments towards a match entered into, I am sure, mostly from desperation.

You will say that she should have had faith. But do not judge her too harshly, Thad. My own history with both her mother and herself has given her no occasion to trust in the fidelity of men, and she is too young to perceive the nuances and distinctions of the complex network of loyalties that govern our actions. And it was only today that I learned my blame goes even deeper. Had Scarlett trusted me completely, she would never have installed us in this world of shades that I'd left behind in my youth for a reason, nor forced Rose into a play with predetermined lines she believed she had no choice but to recite.

We plan to take her to Europe for a few years, to study medicine - and to grow up. I leave it to your heart and your judgment, whether you are willing and able to wait for her. I pray that you will, at the least, be able to evade the acrid path of bitterness that I trod for so many years after meeting a spirited young belle at a barbeque, whose hold on my heart I resented. As you know, I boast neither faith nor confessor, but that mere fact has not kept me from sin.

It was good to see you again, Thad - no matter how briefly. Midnight has long struck on the clock in the library, and Dan's grey cat is ever more forcefully demanding my chair, so I will close for tonight. Presuming your leave, I will continue the correspondence at the next opportunity. Perhaps together we can unravel the twisted threads of our history, and come, if not to full understanding, at least to some sort of healing. I regret that I was unable to do so in the past. I pray that life and maturity have finally given me the courage to speak frankly. I will leave you to be the final arbiter of my success.

I remain, as always,

Your affectionate Uncle,

Rhett

Thad read the letter again. And then again. After the third perusal, he would have been able to recite it from memory. If there was a tiny flicker of elation in his heart, it died before he allowed himself to feel it. He had jettisoned too many hopes over the last few weeks, spurred by what he'd believed to be the deafening finality of his loss. As with most people who have been at once deprived and over-stimulated as children, there were hidden drawers in his brain into which unwelcome emotions could be stuffed, tangled like socks, and made difficult to retrieve.

His hand balled into a fist, crushing the letter. His right arm pulled back like a baseball player's, and then shot forward, releasing it, tossing it towards the water. Its lack of mass made it drop to the ground after only about twenty feet, and he watched the wind toss it to and fro between the rocks, before it finally caught on a bramble. He thought about retrieving it, burning it, tossing it into the water again, but was unwilling cede it that much importance.

He turned back to his horse, and swung himself back into the saddle. A few seconds later, the sound of hoof beats echoed once more over the water.