Thank you again for your thoughts and reviews. Guests ….I think Thad will come around. Stubborn and proud people need time! Dixie, I loved your cultural musings as usual. I want to address this point in particular: would being educated as a doctor make Rose even less accessible to Thad? The answer is: Probably quite the opposite. The profession of medicine at the end of the 19th century was not then what it is now. Education was haphazard, often unregulated, and its status and standing as a profession was at an all-time low (which you can see because it started to admit women. Every time a profession's standing/pay falls, it suddenly becomes overrun by women. Case in point: teachers. Case in point: Modern medicine (the four lowest paying specialties, pediatrics, family medicine, psychiatry and internal medicine) are dominated by females, and the highest paying ones dominated by males. And back then, educated women were not desirable marriage partners for "the best society". So Rose is actually hurting herself, socially. Which may be good for him. ;-) Hope you enjoy!

PS: I just realized I cut the end off when I copy-pasted it into the forum. Sorry about that.

Oh foreigner, tell the Lacedaemonians

That here we lie, obeying those words.

The grey gelding trotted into the circular space before the stables. Thad jumped down, threw a rope over the horse's neck, and tied it in a looped knot to one of the iron rings by the wall. Then, with determination, he strode up to the green-eyed boy waiting in front of the house, surrounded by a sea of suitcases and boxes.

The boy was craning his neck, turning this way and that, to take in the corral and the riding ring and the duck pond.

"Perry," Thad said, darkly, when he'd come close enough. "How in hell did you get here?"

"Railroad, " Perry said, briefly. "James brought me. And Jim too. They're in the house."

Thad took a deep breath. "I understand the method of your arrival. What I don't understand is …why are you here?"

"Dad felt it'd do me good to do some pisical labor. Cuz I was bad all year." Perry said, cheerfully, still looking about with interest, his bright eyes latching onto a mare with a month-old foal gawkily attempting to sort out its legs. "They're going to Europe, you know," he confided, looking back up at Thad through his thick lashes. "Dropping Rose off, and then travelling. Churches, and museums, and dull things like that, Dad says. I don't believe I should like it by half. I'd much rather be here and help you."

"How fortunate," his cousin observed with laudable equanimity. "So you're here for….how long?"

"Dad didn't say," the boy replied, happily. "They'll send for me once they're done with the museums. Which may take a while, Dad says. "

"I see. And let me guess - you've been told not to let me out of your sight."

Perry nodded enthusiastically. "Dad says he's countin' on me to stick close to you, and learn everything I can. Just in case I change my mind 'bout bein' a pirate." He turned his limpid gaze on his cousin, his face –so much like Rose's! –glowed with thoughts of horses, and cows, and the absence of arithmetic. "Aren't you glad I came?"

"Couldn't be more delighted," said Thad dryly. "Urbes constituit aetas, hora dissolvit."

"What?"

"Nothing. But remind me never to underestimate your father again." He reached out and lightly ruffled the dark curls. "Now come into the house and wash up, varmint. Mother made crêpes, and if you behave, I'll share."

~~oo~~

The scandal had been every bit as juicy as expected, helped little by the almost immediate departure of the Wilkes back to Boston. It was difficult to say what enticed the wagging tongues more – the fact that Rose Butler had cried off from such a desirable engagement, or that her father was permitting her to travel to Scotland to study medicine. Medicine! Who would have thought that Rose Butler, of all people, would turn out to be a blue-stocking? Even more damaging was the overall consensus that the Butlers cared very little about what was being said by all the nicest people - which was doubly insulting.

The letter had arrived from Atlanta with Dr. Harrison's recommendations, and after much discussions, and transatlantic correspondence, including a flurry of telegraphs, the choice had fallen on Queen Margaret's Medical College in Glasgow. Dr. Harrison knew the Dean personally, and one of Rhett's former blockading colleague, a congenial Scott by the name of Gowan McIntyre, had settled there with his family after the war. In response to Rhett's inquiry, he had written an amiable letter that he and his wife would be delighted to have Rose stay with them for the entire duration of her studies.

Scarlett - who had dreaded exposing her daughter to the dangers of a foreign boarding house even more than being stuck in what she imagined as gloomy and perilous Scottish mountains - was much relieved.

"Glasgow is not in the Highlands, mother. It's in the Lowlands. Low means no mountains," Rose had commented, helpfully.

"But you can't tell me it isn't dangerous. Your father was saying something about a wild people in Scotland who paint their faces blue, so…"

Rose rolled her eyes. "He meant the Picts, mother. And they haven't been around as a cultural entity since, oh …about 1000 AD."

"Well," her mother said, "it isn't America!"

And there was no arguing with that.

~~oo~~

An argument had sprung up when Rhett insisted on sending Perry to Texas. His doting mother, much opposed to the idea, did her best to dissuade him, but met with no success.

"It will be good for him," Rhett had laughed, merely grinning when she attempted to press him for a reason. Perry, who viewed Europe as a prisoner might view solitary confinement, had fully supported his father's point of view. So they had parted, merely a few weeks later, towards opposite ends of the globe.

The days on the steam-boat were spent in relative harmony. The only excitement was provided by Dan and Gerry, whose tendency to explore into places off limits for passengers were the bane of the captain, the crew, and their long-suffering governess. The crew also, perhaps unfairly, blamed the dis- and subsequent reappearance of certain small objects in odd places on those two would-be pirates, but as they were never caught in the act, there was little to be done about it.

Rose, whose friendship with Cherry had undergone a significant chill, spent much of her time reading the textbooks Dr. Harrison had provided her with, or simply staring into space.

"Did you ever write Thad?" her mother asked one evening as they both stood by the railing.

"No."

"But why not?"

"What should I say," Rose enquired, with some derision. "I didn't trust you, and accepted another man's proposal a mere two days after you left -but obligingly put your life on hold for me for another two years or so, while I figure myself out?"

"Well, no," Scarlett admitted, somewhat helplessly. "But after all, you didn't marry him! Beau, I mean. At the very least, Thad deserves to know that."

"I'm sure Perry will tell him," Rose said, with chilling finality.

"Yes, her mother said, with a sudden smirk. "I'm sure he will."

When she wasn't studying, or staring into space, Rose was watching Rhett.

Watched him escort Scarlett to dinner, watched the slight hesitancy in his expression at times when he observed her mother, the guarded look that was, had Rose known it, a cousin of his old cat-before-a-mouse-hole expression. Before, it had searched for her mother's love. Now, it seemed to wait, as if in secret dread, for some unknown verdict.

"Were you….. brave, by any chance Daddy?" his daughter wanted to know one evening, when he came into her cabin to call her to dinner after she'd finished dressing up. One dark eyebrow arched on the perfect ivory forehead.

"Why do you ask?" he said.

"You seem ….skittish. Like an animal that has lost its shelter."

He laughed. "An apt analogy. But yes. I actually believe I was brave, for once."

"Uncomfortable, isn't it."

His dark eyes laughed at her. "Very." He pulled a dark curl. "And you?"

"Still as cowardly as ever," she smirked.

"I'm sorry," he said, evenly, matching her tone. "You know how much I wished things had gone differently for you and Thad, don't you?"

"Yes," she said, softly. "Don't refine too much upon it, Daddy. I'm not a big believer in the power of misunderstandings. When they happen, they happen for a reason – and that reason is usually that people don't want to clear them up. Because they fear success almost as much as they fear failure. "

"Do you think so? Your mother and I certainly had moments where we…."

She gave him a strange look. "Daddy. Neither of you could have tolerated a close and intimate relationship at that time. You needed decades of growth to be able to talk properly … and even more decades until you were now, finally able to say 'I'm all in.' You would never had hidden your love for all those years had you been ready – and she would never have failed to recognize hers for so long."

"Harsh, but not implausible," he said. "And what about Thad and yourself? Do the misunderstandings mean you aren't ready, either?"

She gave him another look, but didn't answer.

~~oo~~

After installing her comfortably with Rhett's friends in Glasgow, her family travelled on to the Continent. Overall, the Butler's Italian tour left little to be desired in terms of diversion for both tourists and locals. Gerry had almost drowned trying to climb a sea-facing city wall in Naples ("taking 'see Naples and die' a little too literally,' his father had said, after fishing him out), and Dan had barely escaped breaking his neck chasing a new species of spotted salamander to the top of the Coliseum in Rome. (A very similar salamander turned up later that day in the bed of a neighboring hotel guest, but Dan vehemently denied any connection.)

"I'm not sure why some people make so much of history," Scarlett said, frankly, getting ready for bed in a snug hotel in Florence. "Especially these ruins! One would think they would either repair them properly, or tear them down. I will admit," she added, "the churches in Rome are pretty, and the pictures at the Sixteenth Chapel (sic) are quite grand, even though my neck was stiff for days from trying to stare up at the ceiling! One would think it would have been better to paint them somewhere else. And put a picture-frame around them. But all in all, I liked Italy better than I thought I would. However," she said with a shudder, "promise me you will not take me back to that place with the pigeons. I swear those dratted birds ruined at least three of my best dresses. Not to mention the stench of those waterways! And with Gerry shaking those wobbly little boats so much every time we went anywhere, I feared we were all going to drown before we got out!"

"I am quite sure the Gondoliers of Venice wouldn't weep too bitterly if we didn't return," her husband said comfortably. "Or if we do, at least did not bring Gerry. One rarely sees the sturdy people of that aquatic profession turn green in the face, but …."

"He is becoming as bad as Perry," the young man's mother said, severely. "I'd hoped that without his brother to goad him, he would settle down, but it seems to have had the opposite effect. And Dan is becoming alarmingly self-directed as well. All of your children," she said, with thundering finality, "take after you!"

"Obviously. After all, you were such a sweet, biddable child," her husband agreed.

"Well, no!" she admitted, and swiftly changed tack. "I am looking forward to the scandalous statue you've been telling me about, that we'll be seeing tomorrow. The Romans must have been a very ….. open-minded people. Miss Addy has already told me she intends to remain behind with the boys, because she fears it may be too much for her sensibilities! Imagine setting up such a thing in Atlanta, or Charleston for that matter! Can you imagine the faces?"

"Not the Romans, my love. The sculpture of David was made by Michelangelo," her husband laughed. "Early 1500s." He had enjoyed taking Scarlett about a country that he loved. Even though the trip couldn't avoid but highlight all of her glaring deficits in formal education, it had also showcased her strengths: her sincere, unvarnished delight in the things that moved her.

"Oh! But that was long ago as well. And when we're done with history, I am looking forward to Paris!"

~~oo~~

Perry found Thad kneeling by the fireplace, after having turned over the embers with long iron tongues. He was motionless, staring into space.

"Are you… sad?"

Thad turned his head. The green eyes staring at him beneath the mop of dark hair were more scrutinizing than strictly empathetic. "Why do you ask?"

"Because Dad said I should remind you of Rose if you were feelin' sad. Although I don't know why that should help," his young cousin asserted, with refreshing candor. "After all, she's just a girl."

Thad shook his head, the corner of his mouth lifting. The most regrettable victim of his bitterness - his sense of irony - had made an unexpected recovery. "Per. You've completely ruined my Byronesque moment." He rose lightly, and turned, his face serious again. "Sometimes it does help to be reminded of a girl, Per. Sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes one doesn't know either way. Today is one of those days."

Perry nodded, not comprehending a thing. He wrinkled his forehead, and laid his head to one side. "Can I ask you something, Cousin Thad? Do you …..like Rose?"

Thad didn't reply for a moment, and then said, gently, "how do you mean?"

"You know. Like …for a wife."

Thad laughed. "The idea seems odd to you, doesn't it."

"Yes," Perry said, wrinkling his nose. "Rose is…..bossy. You know. Like a sister."

"All sisters are bossy – or so I'm told. I've never met mine. And most women are someone's sister, so you can't really judge her by that, can you? But if you were to marry, Per, what would you look for in a wife?"

"She'd have to be pretty, " Perry said, swiftly. "Like Mother. Mother is the prettiest woman in the whole world. And she'd have to smell nice. And bake lots of crêpes like Auntie Belle." He looked at Thad. "Those are good things, yes?"

"Yes," Thad said, doing his best not to smile. "Those are excellent qualities, Per. I'm sure you'll chose a fine wife when you're ready."

"Oh, and she can't be 'fraid of toads," the boy confided. "I'm afraid Dan might try to scare her if she is, you know."

"Will you still be living with Dan?"

"Of course," Perry said, with supreme confidence. "I would never live anywhere without Dan."

"Then you had better test her for toads. Just to be safe."

"Rose hates toads," Perry reported with some contempt, and threw a glance at Thad, as if to assess if this information had injured her in his eyes. Finding no confirmation, he walked over to the side table, on which a book lay open. "What are you reading?"

"About a battle in a far away country called Greece. They were attacked by a people called the Persians."

"What happened?"

"Everybody died."

"Why?"

"Because they allowed themselves to be trapped in a bad spot, and were quite outnumbered by the enemy."

"How silly," denounced Perry. "I would have told them not to do it."

"They didn't even listen to one of their greatest Generals," Thad said. "It happens that way sometimes."

"Why are people write books about a battle where everybody died?"

Thad laughed. "Good question, Per. It was heroic, I suppose. Men like heroic deeds. These men chose to die, because they believed in something greater than themselves. Honor. The law of their city. Freedom, perhaps. Although it's sometimes hard to tell what that means."

"Some of Mother's friends are like that. They still talk about that war that happened long ago, before I was even born, and get all 'xcited. Why are people stupid, Cousin Thad?"

"Men will always be stupid, Per. About girls, and about battles. I'm not sure I know why, myself."

"'Cause they like spears, and crêpes." Perry said.

Thad laughed his full, warm laugh. "Yes. Because they like spears, and crêpes." He held out his hand. "Now come to bed."

They marched through several hallways to the bedrooms. Thad had installed him in the small bedroom off the master suite, which was connected by a separate door, and had instructed a pack of large, cozy dogs to curl around a boy unused to sleeping alone, but too proud to admit to fear. As he tucked him in, Perry mumbled, sleepily, "tomorrow you can tell me more 'bout battles. Do you know one with monsters in it that chew up people?"

"I'll tell you a story of an enormous monster with six heads, that tries to eat up everyone on a big ship", Thad promised.

"Ok. And giants."

"Giants, too. With only one eye. And beautiful sirens who attempt to sing sailors to their death, and how a man named Odysseus outsmarts them. Now go to sleep, you bloodthirsty creature."

He waited for the sleepy: "goody!" before closing the door behind him. "Good night."

Thad leaned his head against the door-frame, briefly closing his eyes. How is a man supposed to put a girl out of his mind if her face follows him around all day in the shape of a boisterous ten-year-old?

Right, he thought, grimly. That was the idea.