Thank you, dear readers, for your thoughts. We will get back to R&S soon, probably in the next chapter. Now, we need to spend some time with the Widow that Belle likes so much, as difficult as that might be. Hope you enjoy!

M rating for adult content. Nothing remotely graphic, but considered yourself warned. You may easily skip this chapter without losing anything.

Edit to add: Of course I'll post The Talk™, Firth'sDarcy (you need an account so one can PM you. You wouldn't suffer as much. I promise. :) When have I ever been hampered by such miserable things as time-lines? This is ...Fall of 1893. Or actually, it hops around a lot, but it begins and ends in 1893. Next chapter, we hop back one year to Summer of 1892.

Tweaked to clarify some issues.

"Thick, luxuriant woods grew round the cave,

alders, and black poplars, pungent cypress too,

and there, birds roosted, folding their long wings,

owls and hawks and the spread beaked ravens of the sea,

black skimmers who make their living off the waves.

And round the mouth of the cavern trailed a vine

laden with clusters, bursting with ripe grapes.

Four springs in a row, bubbling clear and cold,

running side-by-side, took channels left and right.

Soft meadows spreading round were starred with violets,

lush with beds of parsley. Why, even a deathless god

who came upon that place would gaze in wonder,

heart entranced with pleasure.

-Homer, The Odyssey "Kalypso's Cave"

Genevieve Schafer, known to her numerous intimates as Gina, slowly detangled herself from the soft white bed sheets, and sat up. Her thick yellow hair fell over her shoulders in a delightfully tangled cascade, and even while rising she smoothed it back with her fingers, ever mindful of her appearance. Thad was sleeping beside her – an unusual occurrence, for he seemed to need less sleep than ordinary mortals, and was usually up and about long before her, on those rare nights that he slept over.

Her eyes traced his heavy shoulder muscles with some possessiveness. He was hers. He was handsome, and wealthy, and she now had every intention of marrying him. She had his mother's approbation, and in her mind it was only a matter of time before he, too, would succumb. He had never promised her wedlock - he had, in fact, gone out of his way to assure her he had no such intentions – but men were fickle under the best of circumstances, and could be relied on to change their minds, if properly managed.

If Thad had proven difficult to manage thus far, it was, she reasoned, because he still harbored illusions about the curly-haired girl-woman that she had resented almost from the first time she'd heard her name. She had found out about her, not from Thad, but from Belle, when she had expressed her frustration that Thad had not proposed. Despite her increasing hints that he should. Despite the fact that they had been seeing each other for years.

"Fancies himself in love with someone," his mother had informed her, with some derision. "Fell for a pretty face, just like a man. But she ain't right for him." She had assessed Gina candidly, adding, "You'll do much better."

Gina's vanity had been gratified, if for the wrong reasons. In reality she had no idea why Belle should prefer herself to Rose as a wife for her son, and she did not really care, as long as it worked in her favor. Her worries were further soothed when she heard of Rose's parentage – certainly not what someone of Thad's background could hope to aspire to. She herself was not bothered by illegitimacy, if illegitimacy was tall of stature, and broad of shoulders, and came wrapped up in money, and position. She stemmed from a line of indentured servants who'd risen to owning a decrepit, dusty piece of land that they clung to precariously, lest they be swept back into the abyss. She had married at sixteen, somewhat above her station, to the foreman of Thad's Ranch. Because she'd been pretty, and determined. She still was.

When her husband had fortuitously tidied himself away almost a decade later by allowing himself to be gored by a steer, he had left her a log cabin on the outskirts of town, and a small independence.

She had been aware of Thad for years, and had often tried to improve their acquaintance, when she ran into him at dances, charity events, or a social function at the Ranch. But he had heretofore remained aloof, if courteous. But only a few weeks into her widowhood, he had suddenly been at her door after suppertime.

"May I come in?" he had asked. He had smiled, standing in her narrow door-way, and flicked back an errant curl. That slight toss of his head made him beautiful, as movement always did. Her lips had curved in anticipation.

It was, of course, entirely improper for a widowed lady to entertain a gentleman without chaperone, at that late hour no less, but she was no lady, and her cabin was far enough off the road that no one would see him enter.

"But of course." She had stepped aside. She was not wearing black, and she asked herself if he would judge her. She thought not, as she watched his eyes glide over her form appreciatively. His presence dwarfed the small room. She had purged it of her husband's belongings, selling or giving away most of the items that reminded her of him. It was now a soft, feminine space, filled with colorful pillows, and billowing curtains - entirely hers.

He had looked down at her quizzically, after he had declined the drink she offered him. "It's been a while since I've seen you, Mrs. Schafer. How have you been keeping?"

"All right, I guess." She smiled demurely. Her accent was purely Texan, with its unique blend of Upper and Lower South influences. When she tried, she could infuse it with a soft, throaty flavor. She was trying now. "It's a hard world, for a woman, all by herself…"

Even she could not be more blatant than that.

He gave a short laugh, and seemed to decide to dispense with the preliminary pleasantries. "Yes. It is on precisely that business that I'm here." His rich, dark voice contained a hint of drawn-out, Charlestonian vowels. Gina would never learn that it was not his true voice. He had stepped closer to her, close enough so she could feel the heat of his body. "You see, now with Harald gone, I would like to offer you…an arrangement." When she had lifted her eyebrows in feigned confusion, he clarified, willing to play along with the game to a certain extent, "To share a bed with me, whenever I can spare the time to come here. You will find me …generous with money." She had opened her eyes widely, and with, she hoped, convincing astonishment. He held up his hand. "Just so there's no mistake, I have no intention of marrying you, and I know how to prevent pregnancy, so there should be no chance of getting you with child."

She had been somewhat offended by the plainness of his talk. She had not been faithful to her husband, but none of her other lovers had ever made a proposal quite as cold-blooded as he. She would almost have been less mortified had he tried to seduce her first, and given her the opportunity to appear overcome by his charms, as his many predecessors had done. As if reading her mind, he said, "I would also have to insist that you discontinue ….any other arrangements you may currently have. While my views are ….liberal in some respects, I do not share."

She flushed, when he added, "and don't think you could hide them from me. I always find out." He'd smiled, as if laughing at her, and at himself, but she'd understood the underlying threat quite well. He had a reputation for chivalry with regards to women, but those unfortunate men that had thought to challenge him in the local saloons were apt to find themselves without teeth, or broken bones, or worse.

She'd tossed her head. "And if I do…conceive?"

"I would take care of any child that is mine." She saw something flash in his eyes, that she couldn't understand. "But as I said, you will find me ….quite experienced in avoiding such a complication."

She attempted to hide a smirk. She was just as adept as he at avoiding an unwanted pregnancy. Perhaps more so.

He had lifted his large hand, and run his thumb over her lower lip in a teasing manner. "So you understand me ….. there is no hope of marriage. If that is what you seek, you will have to look for it elsewhere."

She had thought about it briefly, and nodded. She had no desire to tie the knot again right now, aside from pecuniary considerations that he had offered to alleviate. If she should want to marry him, later …she would change his mind. She gave no thoughts to the pleasures of bedding him, beyond what it might motivate him to do for her. He smiled, as if he read her thoughts in her face, but waited patiently for her next move.

She lifted her head to be kissed. He lowered his lips to hers, and at his touch she felt the controlled savagery in him, that she would spend months and years trying to unleash without success. He pushed her into the adjourning bedroom, and with a quick, smooth movement, tore her dress off her voluptuous, uncorseted frame.

"That was my favorite dress," she mumbled, already lost to coherence. There was a disconcerting pulse behind her eyes, blurring her vision. She fought to regain control, even as she felt herself being lowered backwards onto her bed. It was not he who was supposed to hold himself back, keep the vital parts of his self out of reach. She was not supposed to give in. She was …

"Add it to my bill," he murmured. His lips were soft, warm, demanding on hers.

She surrendered herself to his hands, and to his probing lips. She was no innocent herself, but she had found him to be almost….. indecently experienced. Enough to draw pleasure from a body accustomed to taking pleasure only in power. He knew all there was to know about distraction, counter-irritants, and even more devious ways to keep her arousal simmering at an almost unbearable level, before he finally permitted her release. There was nothing in the realms of intimacy that seemed new to him, although he surprisingly kept their love-making within fairly conventional limits. On the few occasions that she had, nettled by his reticence, tried to push him beyond the boundaries of the ordinary, he had stopped her, not as one shocked, but was one who has traveled down those roads, and had, overall, not found them to his liking.

This disconcerted her, for she felt it robbed her of her base of dominance. It also renewed her interest in his past. He had told her next to nothing about his childhood, and on that subject alone his mother, too, proved less than open. Gina surreptitiously studied his body, especially the odd pattern of round burn marks on his right thigh, and she wondered how they, and other old injuries had come about.

Once, laying next to him, she had attempted to trace the scars on his thigh with her long fingertips. Swift as a falcon, he had grabbed her hand, and drawn her away.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Nothing." His tone invited no further inquiries. She had decided, after a while of studying them without appearing to study them, that they were most likely cigar burns, and that they must have been intentionally inflicted. By whom? They were old injuries, from the white, faded looks of them. He must have been quite young.

But he kept the secrets of his body as tightly as he guarded the secrets of his mind. It was disconcerting, and frustrating, for most men were simple enough to understand. Thad remained an enigma, more so, perhaps, because it was not just a façade that he cultivated. He carried his silence like the kindness one has for a child, and if she had had a mind for such concepts, she might have said that she felt infantilized. But she did not possess such a mind, and she was only able to conclude that he held back to retain the upper hand, and to resent him for it.

Deprived of the weapons of Kalypso, she opted for the charms of Nausikaa, however little they suited her. "Why me?" she had asked, coquettishly, on more than one occasion, hoping to draw him out.

"You were available, and you have the right kind of house," he'd grinned. She feared he was not entirely joking.

"But you made the offer to be your …mistress, before you'd even slept with me," she fished, hopefully. "Perhaps you were secretly in love with me from afar?" She was not wise, nor particularly intelligent, although she possessed a certain amount of street smarts. She was used to men falling in love with her. She could have easily married again. Her arrangement with Thad, which was apparently well-known, had kept the men who worked at the Ranch at a careful distance, but there were others, less aware, or perhaps less wise, who had nonetheless made their interest clear.

"Bob Raymond works at my Ranch," he'd shrugged, and rolled over. She colored. Bob had been a former lover of hers. Her temper flared.

"So you ….asked him about me?"

His black eyes had danced. "But of course."

"You ….." she huffed. She was genuinely insulted this time … insulted because Thad had, as they say, checked out the goods after all, and insulted because Bob had, apparently, not been nearly as surprised and heart-broken as he had pretended to be, when she broke off their affair. To think how she had attempted to console him!

Her life quickly fell into a new routine. Thad came by regularly, but not very frequently. He stayed in Houston for extensive periods, and with time she understood that he viewed the Ranch as a diversion, pleasant enough, but kept around mainly because he enjoyed the countryside, and the life-style. He made his fortune through investments that he spoke little about. He had never offered to take her to Houston, and was impervious to her hints that he should.

He was as generous with money as he had alleged, and, given how infrequent their trysts were in the scheme of things, it would have been much more economical for him to visit one of the local bawdy houses. But rumor had it he had an aversion to such places, perhaps due to his mother's former occupation.

When he came by, he stayed only briefly. If he did stay overnight, he brought books with foreign titles that he'd read after their encounters, often in lieu of talking to her. It was offensive, in a way, to be regarded as nothing more than a body, although she was accustomed to it. It was even more offensive that he never surrendered her his own carnality. That he remained in complete control of their encounters, that the animal savagery that she felt within him was never unleashed in her presence. Or so she told herself.

It was a late night in September that she learned that that might after all be a good thing. She had made the mistake of asking him about Rose. She had once again hinted at marriage, and he had merely cocked his dark eyebrows at her.

"You knew from the outset that that wasn't an option. If it proves too difficult for you, we can discontinue our arrangement at any time."

The casual tone cut her vanity, and more.

"But we're good together," she argued. "And you should have a wife…."

He grinned. "You've been talking to my mother again."

She had indeed run into Belle that very morning. She gave what she hoped was an adorable shrug as she stepped out onto thin ice. "Your mother says you're in love with your cousin." She regarded him narrowly, hoping he would prove her wrong.

He had turned, and for the first time, he honestly frightened her. "If I were you, I would drop that particular topic."

But she had pressed on, heedless and incautious. "A Butler, no less. Fat chance you'd…." She saw his eyes again, and vowed she would never again regret his reticence. For a brief moment, she was afraid he would strike her. Instead, he got out of bed, dressed himself, and left. He didn't return for three months.

When he did return, his eyes challenged her to reopen the subject, but she was not quite that unwise. They fell back into their pattern of occasional visits. He was, if anything, even more remote. She was, if anything, even more determined to wed him. Not because her affection for him had increased, for in all honesty, she found his character off-putting at this point, but because he was rich, and because she couldn't bear to be out-done by an anemic virgin. And because, despite his many shortcomings, he was the only man who had ever drawn pleasure from her jaded body, and she had no intention of giving him up. Thad would marry her, whether he liked it or not.

One day, when he seemed in a more leisurely mood than usual, she asked him why he didn't stop by more often.

"You have no problems with …..performance when you're here," she had mocked. "So why do you come here so rarely? It seems like a bad use of an investment to me." The thought had occurred to her that, perhaps, he kept other mistresses. Perhaps in Houston? It was a disquieting thought.

He'd laughed, and played with her long tresses. For a minute, she was certain he wouldn't answer her. "I come here often enough to feed the demons," he'd said, then, making no sense to her. "They demand contact with ….a real woman, every once in a while. I give them their due, so they don't rage out of control." He'd leaned over her, staring into her blue eyes with his black ones. "How does it feel, to be demon fodder?" he'd asked. She'd giggled, sure that he was jesting, and he'd kissed her, nipping at her lower lips until she yelped. His soft lips had always been his most devastating weapon. By the time he started caressing her curves, she had succumbed again.

Only later did she think about his words once more, and they began to take on a new, ominous meaning, one not at all aligned with her plans. She began to reconsider her options. If she could not lure him into wedlock by lust, or love, there was one other way she had not yet tried. Perhaps, it was time to resort to what her Mother had called the more obvious weapons. After all, she reasoned – desperate times called for desperate measures.

~~oo~~

It was dark by the time Thad left. Even though he chose his partners carefully, there was always an uneasy feeling at the back of his mind when he thought of them. Gina was independent, selfish, and experienced – all of which made her an ideal partner for such an arrangement as this. He willingly paid more than market value in money and pleasure, but he did not deal in forced sales, or broken hearts. But the uneasy feeling remained. For a sensual nature, any intimate encounter, even one as coldly entered into as theirs, always carries within itself both the threat of the abyss and the divine. Unlike Rhett at a similar age, Thad never underestimated the power of mere bodies. What Gina had, half-correctly, identified as controlled savagery was, in reality, a precise navigation between equally powerful, but opposing forces. He knew that to close yourself off completely from the divine spark only serves to bring the abyss that much closer, and with it, the triumph of the demons. He did not love Gina. But when she writhed at his touch, or undulated under him, there were moments – briefly- when she was more than merely a woman. He could not see her too often.

He had not lied to her when he told her he visited to keep demons at bay. He knew himself thoroughly …as do those that have travelled all the dark roads of their mind at a young age, and returned to tell the tale. He had grabbed ahold of his love for Tasha as a life-boat that pulled him out of the dark places, and he had repaid her for rescuing him by causing her death. He would carry that burden of his youthful folly to the end of his days. He knew when his body craved food, or water, or the simple contact with human skin. He knew the dangers of denying it too long, or to indulge it too frequently.

He knew, also, that part of what his mother had implied was correct. It was time that he chose a wife. He had always wanted children ….children to raise, and love, and teach, as he had taught his younger cousins. As his own father had never taught him.

As he stepped briskly up the hill, he wondered, not for the first time, what exactly it was that he was waiting for. Rose had been away for almost two years now ….and she had never written him, or explained her behavior during their last encounter. Rhett had written –Scarlett had written, and even Wade had written to explain about the Cherry incident. Who had not written, was Rose herself. He had tried to make allowances for her youth, and for her pride, and her shame, but those allowances only went so far.

He sighed. No, he had never even given a thought to marrying Gina, but Texas was full of eligible, intelligent, educated women who wouldn't mind his birth, who would be amiable companions, who would give him children to love.

But they would not be Rose.

He thought of them, sitting for hours against the wall by the stable, her face haloed by starlight, talking about everything and nothing. He thought of her eyes, trembling between laughter, and passion, and terror, in the corridor of her parent's home the morning after the dance. He thought of his hands on her body during the waltz, and how it had felt to finally hold her.

He called himself a romantic fool, waiting around for almost a decade for a woman who clearly wanted nothing more to do with him. For all he knew, she had met someone else in Scotland. His business partners had for years wanted to introduce him to the Annamaries and Heathers and Elizabeths that were their daughters, and nieces, and cousins - amiable, virtuous, and available.

He broke through the clearing, and saw the lights of the house below him. Perhaps he should finally give them a chance.

PS: Thad is...35ish here. I had him down as 17 during MMS, and roughly 18 years have passed. An age where a man would think about settling down & raising a family. Especially since Rose is being so Rhett-ish, and not writing!