Disclaimer: I own nothing regarding GWTW
Author's Notes: Thank you for all the reviews and feedback.
Suggestion for this story
Guest Reviewer: What if Rhett married the buggy wheel girl, but she didn't die? He is received and meets Scarlett, but what can he do? This is my interpretation of that thought.
Chapter One
Rhett Butler was on the train. It was four months after Bonnie's death and a week after Miss Melly's. He was leaving the South for a while. He would try to come back every two to three months to stay in touch with Wade and Ella. He had stayed for Miss Melly's funeral and a couple of days after that. When Scarlett had packed up the house for the family to go to Tara. He had packed up his trunks for him to go to New York. He would take a ship to London. He would get himself a place to live in Europe and try to make himself a decent life.
Scarlett had not asked him to stay. In fact, she had rarely spoken to him. Rhett decided she knew he no longer loved or wanted her. They had all gone to the train station together. As everyone was saying goodbye, she had said, "If I had only known how things were going to turn out, I would have done so many things differently."
"As would I, my dear."
The couple had shared a sad smile and a hug. She had then boarded the train to Jonesboro without looking back. He had boarded his train an hour later without speaking to anyone else.
Rhett shook off thoughts of the past. He got up and made his way to the dining car. He sat alone. He was neither ashamed nor embarrassed. He had been alone most of his adult life. As he ate his meal, he thought about his future. He said out loud, 'I want to find some of the things I carelessly threw away in my youth." The closeness of family, honor, security, roots that go deep. The slow gentle life of respectability and properness. As Scarlett said, "The perfection and symmetry of a Grecian urn."
A beautiful woman sat down across from Rhett. He smiled. He knew what she was, and he was not interested. He said, "No, thank you."
The woman smiled and said, "No, I am not selling myself. I am willing to sell you what you want most in the world right now."
"A way to bring my daughter back to life."
"No, I don't have that kind of power. What I can do is send you to a place full of slow charm and beauty. A place of decentness and morality. A place you can find honor in. A place you carelessly threw away in your youth.
Rhett was bored so he decided to draw the conversation out. He said, "How? Where?"
"You don't need to know how. Just give me ten dollars and I can make it happen."
"Ten dollars. I don't think so. I know you are a fake. Go away."
"What are you going to do with the rest of your evening. I promise you that if I lied, I will give you your ten dollars back."
Rhett laughed and said, "A guarantee. Very well."
Rhett reached into his pocket and drew out some coins. He put the coins on the table. He picked up a ten-dollar coin and gave it to the woman. He said, "Go ahead."
"My name is Roma. Remember that in case you don't think the place I am sending you to is full of slow charm and beauty.
Rhett smiled and said, "Sure, Roma."
"Let me state the agreement. I am guaranteeing to send you to a place of slow charm and beauty. Correct?"
"Yes, Roma. Slow charm and beauty."
The woman put her head in her hands and mumbled a bunch of words. Rhett did not know the language. Suddenly the room was dark.
The Gypsy woman watched the man disappear. She quickly moved into his seat. She finished his meal. When the waiter came by, he looked at Roma strangely, but this was not the first time she had sent someone back in time to forge a better future. She knew exactly what to say to the man to erase any suspicion of her. She paid for her meal with the coins the man had left. She even gave the waiter a big tip. She had made enough that night to live off of for a long time.
As far as Rhett was concerned, in the next instant he was sitting at his parents' dining room table.
Rhett looked around. There was his father, his mother, his brother, and his sister. He heard his father say, "Rhett, if you don't marry Miss Lambert, you will be ruin. As will she and the entire Butler clan."
Rhett burst out laughing. The woman had sent him back in time. She had sent him to the spring of fifty. She had sent him to a place full of slow charm and beauty. A place of decentness and morality. The closeness of family. A place he could find honor in. The very place he had carelessly thrown away in his youth. Furthermore, it was a place where neither Bonnie nor Scarlett existed. He would take it. He didn't think he could go back anyway. He burst out laughing again.
Rhett said to his father, "I will marry Miranda Lambert. I will go round tomorrow and ask her to be my wife. I can't allow all of us to go down like a house on fire because of a broken buggy wheel."
Rhett had smiled at the shock and look of relief on his father's face. His mother's too for that matter. Maybe even his brother's face.
Rhett was weary of his life. The life he had lived since he had been disowned. Admittedly, he had enjoyed the life he had lived very much. That is until he had married Scarlett. He hadn't enjoyed any of that except for his time with Bonnie. All he had now was memories of his daughter so getting a second chance to do the right thing was just fine with him. He would marry Miranda then live his life as he saw fit. He would make an even larger fortune because he knew what investments paid off big and which ones lost him money. One thing for damn sure. He would never meet Scarlett O'Hara. He would never even enter the state of Georgia.
April 15,1861
It was the day the Civil War started. Rhett was sitting in his cabin on his ship. His ship had set sail the day before full of cotton. For the last five years he had been stockpiling cotton in Lancashire, England. He would bring in war supplies on his return trip. He had been stockpiling war supplies for the last year also. They were in a warehouse in Charleston. He had the advantage. He not only knew there was going to be a war, but he also knew when it would start and end. He had managed to buy a lot of gunpowder. Both sides were going to need it. He had also started a munitions factory. It was in the North, but he was already making a great profit. During the war, those profits would get greater. Nobody but him knew where he had invested his money. In fact, nobody but him knew how much he was worth.
Rhett knew what day it was. It was the day he had met Scarlett in the earlier timeline, but instead of going to Jonesboro he would make a deal in six months. After the price of cotton had bottomed out because nobody could get it to England. He had the resources. He was already a millionaire.
Rhett smiled when he thought about his father's reaction when he had told his father that he wanted nothing to do with Middleton Acres, their family plantation. He had said, "I will make my own fortune."
Rhett had. Not always in the most honorable way, but proper enough for no one to gossip about him. He had been very covert in his business dealings. He also hadn't always been completely honest, but he had learned in his first lifetime how easily some men could be fooled. It had been easy to be low profile. He wasn't infamous in this timeline. He had not wanted to tweak his father's nose with his bad deeds. He knew now he had hurt himself much more than he had hurt his father.
Being a mature man, Rhett knew that his father had done the only thing he could do in the circumstances. His father had to disown him, or the entire Butler clan would have gone down. Not just his immediate family, but his extended relatives also. On both sides.
Rhett also knew based on his experience with Scarlett that there was nothing his wife could do to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to do, no matter how harebrained his ideas were. He had hurt Scarlett with his actions, but he had hurt himself so much more. He had also wondered what he would do if someone ruined Bonnie the way he had ruined Miranda.
Rhett thought about his siblings. Both had made excellent matches. He actually thought that both of them had been love matches on top of that. His brother, Robert, was managing Middleton Acres. He and his family lived at the plantation. Occasionally, making trips into town every now and then, but not very often. Rhett guessed Robert liked country living.
Rosemary lived in Charleston. She was the perfect Charleston lady, thus boring. She never did anything that wasn't proper. She reminded Rhett of Miss Melly. Rhett supposed Rosemary had a kind heart also. He didn't know. He never spent any time with her or her family. Her husband was the minister at the Baptist Church. He was definitely not someone Rhett wanted to spend a lot of time with.
Rhett's life had been a strange set of circumstances. At the time Rhett had the body of a man in his early twenties and the mind and experience of a man in his mid-forties.
Rhett got up and poured himself a whiskey. He thought about his life since his marriage to Miranda. It had been good for the most part. Boring as hell, but good and respectable. If he had not already lived one hell of a lifetime, he would have gone stark raving mad. The first five years had been good for him. It had been wonderful to be part of Charleston proper society once again and he hadn't had to grovel at all. He had continued to be mocking and sarcastic, but he was tolerated because of how rich and powerful the Butlers had been.
Rhett had openly spoken against secession and going to war with the North over the right to own slaves full well knowing the fools were going to war anyway. He was planning on stealing the Confederate gold again. He would save a boat load of money this time by not buying Scarlett a mountain of presents. Presents she never truly gave him credit for or treasured. That made him think of the gold shawl and her giving it away to Mr. Wilkes. That made him mad once again.
Yes, Rhett had needed those first five years. It had given him time to heal from the death of Bonnie and the loss of Scarlett. No, not the loss of Scarlett, the loss of the dream of Scarlett. She had never been the woman he thought she was. She had never grown up and put her childish dreams of Ashley away. Maybe she had the night Miss Melly had died, but he had been too broken. Living with Scarlett had been like living in a war zone. He had been too war-weary to have any hope. He seriously doubted if she had grown up. Maybe he would go to Atlanta and check on her after the war was over.
The last six years had been tedious. Only Rhett's plans for making another fortune off the war had brought any excitement into his life. Although he had enjoyed having intellectual discussions with his father and other men. All of his business deals had made him a lot of money, especially his shipping line. He and his partner Rudy Saade had made a fortune these last several years. He would not have been able to do that if he had not been received into Charleston Society. Another positive result of his bargain.
Rhett smiled. It didn't matter if there had been no good parts, he had made a deal with the devil. He had gotten what he had wanted at the time. He had no regrets. In fact, he was glad he had made the bargain.