The fire was burning low in the grate when Rhett closed his ledger and admitted defeat. Despite a pressing need to get his business affairs back in order after his impromptu absence, he could not settle down to the task.

Behind tired eyelids, images of his wife's face, first calculating and cautious, then enraged and passionate, played on an endless loop. From time to time, a third expression would flash past, often striking at the very moment when he was finally about to do some work and cause him to throw down his papers in despair.

In all the years they had fought and baited one another, never had he seen her react like that. He had been unnerved to see his normally untameable wife suddenly learn how to close herself up, snuffing out her anger like a candle. It must have taken an impressive amount of restraint to regard him so coldly. It reminded Rhett unpleasantly of the inert, unfeeling look that would pass over Scarlett's face whenever she spoke of her previous husbands and his chest clenched at the thought that she was already consigning him to that same dark, unvisited corner of her heart where Charles and Frank resided.

Sighing, Rhett acknowledged that he had once again allowed his temper to get the better of him. In doing so, he had undone all the good work he'd put in over the course of the last twenty-four hours. The thought that this time last night he had been in bed with his wife, holding her in his arms and watching as she took her pleasure from him, was almost too miserable to bear. He'd always had a talent for self-sabotage, but this time he had truly outdone himself.

To think that he had been so happy all day, had enjoyed watching Scarlett walk around with a gleam in her eye and a noticeable bounce in her step. The presents this morning had worked even better than he had hoped, reassuring Scarlett he thought no less of her for taking her pleasure. At dinner, watching her squirm and wriggle in her seat, her movements a sinful parody of the ones she had made in the darkness of their bedroom, Rhett had practically had to sit on his hands to prevent himself from pulling her onto his lap, so keen was he to feel her body writhe against his own once more.

He had been disappointed when he had come back downstairs after putting the children to bed to find that she had shut herself up in the dining room. He had been looking forward to spending his first evening at home in her company and was disheartened, if not wholly unsurprised, to discover that she did not feel the same.

Resigning himself to yet another night spent in his study, he had not believed his eyes when Scarlett appeared in the doorway. Her cheeks flushed and with a few stray strands of hair escaping their clips and falling loosely around her face, he had thought her an apparition, a mirage created by his lonely mind to soothe away the ever-present sting of rejection.

That was, at least, until she had opened her mouth and started speaking.

A crush. She had honestly expected him to believe that she had wandered into uncharted territory with the sole purpose of speaking to him about some stupid party. Just how gullible did she think he was?

The crushing disillusionment had reminded Rhett of another occasion when he had come perilously close to falling for her machinations, an occasion in which - bar for a missing pair of gloves - he would surely have ended up laying the depth of his devotion bare to her cruel, cutting claws. He had told her then that he despised being lied to, that he wouldn't stand for her manipulating him like one of her gormless Clayton County beaus. His aversion to such tactics ran deeper than a sense of wounded pride, for it was the idea that he could not depend upon her to speak to him honestly that had always hurt the most.

That she could lie about the big things made him wonder just how many trifling, small mistruths she told him every day and - for a man who so desperately wanted to know every last inch of his wife's mind - this constant uncertainty drove him to distraction. He wanted to be able to rely on her. There were so few people in his life that Rhett truly trusted and he hated that he could not count his own wife among their number. When he had first met Scarlett, he had been so sure that they were kindred spirits. That here, at last, was a woman to whom he could unburden the darkest secrets of his soul without fear that she would turn away in disgust.

In hindsight, that man seemed almost criminally naïve. For now, Rhett knew that rather than safeguard his secrets in her heart, Scarlett would think only of how to use them to her advantage. That's all he was to her these days: a commodity to be utilised. She wanted his money to show up the Old Guard. She wanted his design ideas to impress Ashley. She wanted everything from him but his actual self. For that, it seemed, held no value.

Her apathy might not have been such a problem - many marriages got by perfectly fine with both parties showing only minimal interest in the other - were it not for one small stumbling block: try as he might, Rhett could not stop loving her.

Rhett knew if only he could train himself to stop caring then everything would be easier. They could be friends, the way they had been during her marriage to Frank, back when he'd thought secret buggy rides and private confidences were the most he'd ever share with her. Rhett had still desired Scarlett then, of course. Had found himself selecting only dark-haired girls to share his bed and growing sick at the thought of Frank's doughy, lily-livered hands sliding across skin that his own itched to map out.

At least then he had been able to take comfort in the thought that, were it not for her hasty decision to wed Frank, Scarlett would have been his and they would have been happy. Now such assurances were worthless. His ring was on her finger and yet still he could not rightly call her his own.

With that thought ringing in his head, Rhett rose and made his way upstairs, almost doing himself an injury when he tripped over something just outside his bedroom door. Cursing, he bent down to pick it up. Shame washed over Rhett as he recognised the horseshoe. He could well imagine the fit of pique that had prompted Scarlett to fling it from their bedroom.

Only this morning he had headed down to the stables while she lay sleeping, the idea to add the unassuming gift to her already extensive pile of presents having come to him sometime during the early hours. It had struck him as the perfect way to atone for the harsh words he had flung her way on the morning of their initial fight.

She had received the token far better than he had expected, grasping its meaning with a perceptiveness foreign to her usually oblivious mind. Scarlett had seemed touched by the sentiment. A hazy memory of the softness that had swept across her face and the dizzying way she had laughed against his lips when he'd pulled her in for a kiss assaulted Rhett and made him yearn to turn back the clock just a few precious hours.

Exploring the grooves inlaid into the metal with his index finger, Rhett wondered if perhaps he hadn't been gravely mistaken about Scarlett's reasoning. He prided himself on being able to read her and - while he was certain that there was an ulterior motive behind her sudden desire to hold a crush - he had to admit that she had seemed remarkably earnest when declaring that neither a desire for his money nor a predilection for impressing Ashley had been the underlying cause.

At the time, and given her past behaviour, those had seemed like the two most likely options, but perhaps it had been remiss of him not to consider a third before opening his mouth and accusing her. He knew better than anyone just how dearly she wanted to be a great lady. He alone knew how deep an impression her mother's legacy had left upon her soul and how guilty she felt each time her indiscretions saw her fall short of the mark.

Perhaps she had reached out to him in the hope he would temper her more extreme choices, adding a touch of restraint to plans that would doubtless veer dangerously towards the vulgar. The thought of Scarlett worrying about this, and turning to him in the hope of a solution, made Rhett's heart ache. It reminded him that underneath her hardened, world-weary veneer lay an unschooled country girl who would need his support if she were ever to achieve her wildly improbable dream.

In light of this epiphany, the words Rhett had so unthinking thrown at her in the study now returned to haunt him. Not only had he flatly refused to assist her, but he had gone so far as to state that she was no lady and never would be.

Not to sound cruel, darling, but your little act isn't fooling anyone.

Not to sound cruel. Yet, that's exactly how he had intended to sound. She had hurt him so he must hurt her back. It was purely instinctual now, a habit so over-used that it had become nigh on impossible to break. All thoughts of the horseshoe had flown completely out of his head when faced with the sudden need to see her humbled. It seemed that, no matter how serious his intentions to change, they were doomed to spend their days going around and around in ever more vicious circles, tearing each other down a little bit more each time until one day soon there would be nothing new left to say, not one ugly, vile insult left to hurl.

It was shameful and tawdry and it was killing him. Slowly but surely, it was destroying the man Rhett wanted to be and the husband he was intent on becoming. With every nasty word he sent her way, he lost a little more of himself, and moved a little further from that idealised version of Rhett Butler that he had once felt only Scarlett could inspire. He no longer counted winning a fight against her as a victory, for he now knew that both of them lost whenever conversation broke down into conflict.

Defeated, and determined to atone for his earlier outburst, Rhett clutched the horseshoe tightly in his hand when he entered the bedroom, failing to hold back a rueful grin when he realised his wife was once again engaged in a futile attempt to convince him she was asleep. Curled up on her side, Scarlett was busy emitting soft, breathy and - to Rhett's well-trained ears - obviously false snores. Watching her clumsy performance, Rhett felt the last of his anger drain away, replaced instead by an almost unbearable fondness for his young bride.

Kneeling down by the bed, he ran a hand through her hair, slipping his fingers beneath her black tresses to cup the back of her neck. Scarlett frowned, her body tensing as she struggled to remain still. Rhett could almost see the desire to leap up and start shouting at him as it played itself out across her brow. Her lips pursed up in a way that clearly conveyed her displeasure and yet only made him want to lean down and smother her with kisses until she forgot her ire altogether.

Forcing himself to hold back, Rhett ran the tips of his fingers across the smooth skin of her neck, pulling back the blanket so he could continue his path over the swell of her shoulder and down the bare length of her arm. Circling Scarlett's wrist, he played with her fingers for a moment, enjoying how she fought to keep her eyes closed even when his touch made her breath catch in her throat.

Rhett shifted on his knees to find a more comfortable position, transferring the horseshoe from one hand to the other. Struck by a playful idea, he pressed the two metal prongs against Scarlett's neck, careful not to let them dig in when she flinched away from the cold. Following the same path his fingers had just traced, he dragged the horseshoe down his wife's arm, enjoying the fine trail of goose pimples that shivered to life in its wake.

As he moved lower, her arm grew slim enough to slide the horseshoe around, almost as if she were wearing a clucky silver bracelet, until, upon reaching her hand, he pressed the body of the object into her palm and closed her fingers around it.

'This is yours.'

After a few moments of obstinacy, Scarlett's eyes flickered open.

Holding her stare, Rhett decided to make a further concession. 'Though I wouldn't blame you for changing your mind, if you still require my assistance in organising a crush, I would be only too honoured to provide it.'

Scarlett tensed, moving to turn away. Rhett prevented her from doing so by laying a restraining hand on her shoulder.

'Please let me apologise.'

'Rhett-'

'No, Scarlett. You asked me for my help and I should have given it. No accusations. No recriminations. I can think of nothing I would enjoy more than the chance to share in this endeavour with you. Together, we shall throw the most infamous crush this fair city has ever seen.' Noticing her lips twitch, Rhett grinned devilishly and continued, 'Years from now, long after you and I have departed this mortal coil for pastures new, people will gather in the streets to reminiscence upon the most illustrious, decadent night ever to have taken place this side of New Orleans. There will be books written on the subject, my dear, stacks and stacks of them. So many that they will have to build entire new libraries just to house them. Thousands of men will be employed to complete the task, more than were needed to build even the great pyramids of Egy-'

'Oh, Rhett, do hush up!' Scarlett cried, rolling her eyes even as his foolish words made her preen vainly. 'You're talking ever such a lot of old nonsense.'

'Not nonsense, my pet. Fact,' he teased, his eyes glinting in the darkness as he took in her drastically improved mood.

Unable to resist any longer, Rhett pulled Scarlett into a kiss, enjoying the way her lips were still stretched out into a smile even as they moved against his.

Rhett cupped her cheek reverently and moved to stand up. He almost toppled over onto the bed when Scarlett surprised him by lurching forward and pulling him into another, more passionate, kiss. Rhett barely dared to breathe as Scarlett dropped the horseshoe onto the floor and wrapped her arms around his neck. Gripping him tightly, she crushed their torsos together as her mouth began demanding things that he was only too willing to give her.

Overtaken by the fear that he had fallen asleep at his desk, and would awaken any moment now to find himself as alone and unmissed as ever, Rhett forced himself to end the kiss.

'Sca-Scarlett?' he asked, cursing his wife's unique ability to reduce him from an urbane man of the world to a stuttering schoolboy.

He held his breath as Scarlett's cheeks coloured prettily, her eyes dropping to the floor.

'What is it, honey? What do you want?'

The answer, when it finally came, was rushed and mumbled and so very quiet that Rhett was convinced he had imagined it.

'Sorry, my pet. I didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat it?'

Scarlett scowled up at Rhett from under slanting brows and would likely have pushed him away had he not had the good sense to hold onto her. He couldn't let her go. Not when something inside was screaming at him not to let this moment slip through his fingers. Clutching Scarlett to his chest, Rhett trusted his gambler's instincts and decided to go for broke.

'Please, honey, tell me what you want.'

Rhett watched Scarlett gather up the fighting spirit he had always so admired. When she looked him dead in the eye, her face was certain and her tone was sure.

'You, Rhett. I want you.'

Rhett wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. He wanted to pick Scarlett up and twirl her around the room until they were both drunk with dizziness.

'Then by all means, Mrs. Butler,' he said instead, 'you shall have me.'