Hello everyone, and welcome to another chapter!

As always, Gone with the Wind is the property of Margaret Mitchell and her heirs. I own neither Percy Shelley's poem, nor Frankenstein for the matter.

I've made some little addition in the previous chapter for fluency and a bit for description. It seems to me sometimes I'm all for the dialogues, yet the descriptions are quite lacking…

Thank you for your support. I hope this chapter will not disappoint you!

Good reading to you!

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November 1859, Twelve Oaks Plantation

The Wilkes knew how to give the best of barbecues.

It was not just because of the ideal location of them, in the rear of the big house, near the rose garden, nor the jealously kept secret of their barbecue sauce, that was slightly shimmering in the huge iron wash-pots. It was because it held everything of the renowned hospitality of the South, with its hosts attentive and generous, and the entertainments many and diverse.

Now, the spits burned low, watched carefully so that one lasting flame might not escape. The men had retreated elsewhere to savor their whiskey and wisdom, and the old ladies and married ones drank their teas and talked softly of scandals big and little.

For the young and celibate ones, it was also a time of gossip and confidences before the usual nap of the afternoon, with giggles and whispers as they were helped out of their morning gowns.

Scarlett pouted. While satisfactory in terms of conquests, once inside that room, she was faced with the utter loneliness of the one who has but one friend, yet a friend that should maybe be more accurately a rival kept in check. So, she lingered with said friend, not wanting to meet the glares of the other girls, for who said conquests meant also enemies.

Not that silly little Cathleen Calvert needed to be kept in check for any intentional mischief. If mischief there was, it was done most inadvertently. For if there was not anyone who liked gossip better than Cathleen Calvert (and the girl made sure to know of it all), her tongue remained loose and clumsy. No secrets could be kept by her.

Scarlett had learned since the beginning of their acquaintance was better to get her close, for she was most handy to get any information at all, or to spread any rumor at all. Yet, that did not mean most of what she said wasn't either completely far-stretched or ludicrous.

"No, certainly, it cannot be so!" She said flippantly. "I can't believe it!"

"Oh, it certainly is!" Cathleen insisted. "I got it from Raif who got it from Honey herself!"

"Oh, but the Wilkeses being kin with the queen of England? My, she would certainly like it, but it cannot be so! And you know poor Honey, always wiggling each time she sees anything in breeches."

"Not everyone can charm as you do, and even I don't completely understand how you manage it," Cathleen's brow crinkled a little and she pouted. "My, you'll have to tell me, so I could get more beaus!"

Scarlett smiled pleasantly. "Fiddle-dee-dee, Cathleen, you're one of the most sought after!"

"Oh, they are attracted to me because I'm beautiful and silly," Cathleen answered her smile with her own. "But you keep their attention, my dear. But then, maybe with such a man as Rhett Butler, you must have learned some tricks to charm them all."

"What do you mean?" Scarlett blinked.

"Oh dear, you mean you don't know?" Cathleen's cornflower-blue eyes widened tremendously, the lips opening in an almost perfect 'o'. It was a comical sight Scarlett would have laughed of, if it wasn't for the impatient anxiety of her heart at the mention of Rhett. "I thought you were aware, with him coming that often in Tara…"

"… Not that often…" She said with a regret that was thankfully perceived as reluctance.

He even seemed a bit more distant when he was there…

"Often enough. Your poor Mamma!..."

"If you told me what you know, Cathleen, and just get on with it," Scarlett snapped.

"Oh," Her friend hesitated, a slight conflict between the excitement of secrets sharing and the guilt of secrets betraying in her eyes as her lips continued moving. "Well, he's quite the rogue! I got it from Caro Rhett, who heard he was expelled from West Point for bad behaviors with women, and that he refused to marry a girl after going out with her alone, without a chaperone!"

Scarlett's shoulders fell just a little. "Oh, it's just that?"

My, of course, he would not marry such a goose!

It would only come to her mind later that she herself had once thought of it with a shiver of excitement, without gathering the courage to attempt it.

Her friend's index raised triumphally in the air, after the sad disappointment of not getting the reaction she had wanted to witness for the first revelation.

"Oh, but it's more! He's got a mistress and a bastard, it is said! A mistress with red hair who owns quite a disrepute house!"

Scarlett froze, almost gripped the banister of the staircase leading to the girls' rooms.

There, the scene she had witnessed years earlier took a whole new meaning. Where the intimacy had been dismissed, now it flared with a jealous accuracy, every little gesture, the slight tilting of the head of the red woman, and the way her fingers grazed his arms, as if by accident.

But it was no accident, no.

Silly, silly girl! She thought with distress. Of course, he does not want you! Why would he want a girl when he can have a woman? You only make him laugh, poor girl. He finds you amusing, he said! Poor, peasant girl that he thinks you are. He laughs at you, at your father. It's just a game for him. You knew that, why did you forget?

Red was in her eyes, in her mind, and she wanted to scream.

Foolish girl as she was!

There, blinded by her fury as she was, she did not realize at first they had almost joined the others. But she could hear them now, and what she heard made her blood boil even more.

"… she's got such a coarse way," She heard India's prudish little voice say. "I don't know how the boys can find something attractive to her! And your father allowing it! Oh, but then it must be because of his roots. Not to offend you, but he's only been a gentleman for a short time, and he is lacking in some ways…"

"I don't. Pa is stupid when it comes to Scarlett. Just the last day, she almost ran off with Raif Calvert…"

The wicked wench! Scarlett almost cursed as she heard Suellen's voice. How could she not defend their own father? Girl without loyalty, nor pride!

"You needn't worry, you got nothing of that. You're such a sweet girl! Oh, but do tell us more!"

There, Scarlett entered the room, an expression full of contempt drawing on her face. The embarrassed glances that awaited her were even more unbearable, especially coming from India Wilkes and her coterie. Settled between them, Suellen fidgeted.

Hypocrites, all of them.

"Oh, enough, India Wilkes, of your glares! This is not to be born!" She snapped, almost stamping in impatience. "Now, why are you angry with me?"

"Well, Scarlett, you did steal Stuart…" Cathleen could not help but add.

"Stuart?" She blinked, dumbfounded for a moment. "Stuart Tarleton?"

Outraged, India raised, tall of her eighteen years, her eyes with pale lashes blazing with barely contained offense.

"Oh, don't do as if you did not know it!" She hissed. "He was about to court me! My family and his talked about it!"

"I did not know it," Scarlett retorted. "But if you wanted him, you should have fought for him. And if he wanted you , he would not have been swayed by a flutter of lashes."

"You turned him away from me!"

"If he's so easily turned, then maybe he's not worth it," She settled bitterly. "Most men aren't."

"You have no heart!"

"Perhaps, but I have sense, and it serves me well," She bit off, and nagged. "Take him if you want, I dare you. 'Tis better to be audacious than to wait for a reluctant suitor to be forced into proposal."

India stood back in shock, her hand almost coming to her throat as the other girls around her gasped.

"You are… so vulgar!"

Scarlett bowed lightly.

"I prefer to say I'm frank. And it feels good. You should try as well."

She smiled wickedly, before whirling back to the corridors. No rest would be found there. She would ask to be excused. No ball could be great enough to bear such an insult.

Yet, as she managed a few steps, she was stopped by the hand of Suellen, who pinched her arm quite harshly.

"You're nothing but trouble! You made me ashamed in front of my friends!"

Oh, she dared…? Scarlett felt her blood pulsing in her veins. She breathed in and continued her way, trying to prevent herself from scratching her.

"Do you know why they sent you to the Academy and no girl likes you?" Suellen continued to talk on her back. "It's because you're always up to mischief, and you always look like you have something to prove! You take too much place, and always take everything, even when that should not be yours! It's already bad enough that Pa is an Irishman to the bones, and shouts it, but you, you always draw attention when it's not wanted!"

That was too much to be born!

"And do you know why no boy, but that old Frank who's just beginning to, notices you?" Scarlett viciously replied as she finally turned back. "It's because you're envious and uptight, and you prefer to complain about what you don't get rather than actually think about how you could get it! You're a victim, and other girls like to comfort the poor, inferior ones, for then it makes them feel good about themselves! Don't you see how they want to pity us? The Irishman's daughters! The newcomer who raised by sheer luck and was but recently accepted, for his generosity and his carelessness! They laugh at his brogue behind his back, I'm sure you heard it too! And you, you poor girl, you deliver yourself on a silver plate, for you're not content to gossip and complain with them, so everyone knows what happens at home, you let them tramp on us, and you laugh with them without even realizing they are also tramping on you!"

Her young sister paled, tried to regain her composure without success. Already, she was nervous, rubbing clammy hands together.

"No, no, you're wrong! They like me because I'm nice…"

"Carreen is nice. You, you are just a little hypocrite not even loyal to your own, so to your friends?! Don't you think I hadn't seen how you made eyes at Stuart Tarleton, thinking you can snatch him away from me, when you profess to be India Wilkes' best friend!"

"Oh, because you think no one caught the eyes you make on that man, that devious Rhett Butler, despite that little act with Ashley, and the flirting with the other boys? Oh, how you shame Mother when you do so! Why, you two deserve each other. I wish you just go together in your merry way to hell and don't bother proper people like us!"

A thunderous sound came crashing between them, and it was only some seconds before either of them realized what had happened. The red mark on Suellen's cheek flared and tears gathered on her clear lashes as her mouth opened in shock. Color raised on Scarlett's forehead, her eyes blazing like a green wild fire.

"Go tell Mother and see if I care."

With that being said, she turned back, alone, flew down the stairs, and took refuge in the first room she saw to let out the sobs of fury that were gathering in her throat. However, as the door closed behind her, she only felt weary and powerless.

How many conversations insulting her father had she witnessed? How many glances of pity had she caught in the way? Couldn't they see that this man was worthy of praise, not of reproach?

Yet, she knew pride had to be overcome.

They must have made a scene, she recognized it now. It would not serve her for what she wanted, and she would have to apologize.

Her mouth pursed. She certainly did not want to!

She leaned back on the door and sighed.

"Scarlett? What are you doing here?"

Startled, she raised her head, and was for a moment distracted over the matters of her heart as she met the drowsy grey eyes of Ashley Wilkes as he was sitting on the sofa, a book resting in his hands.

Ashley Wilkes. Rhett Butler.

How very different the two men seemed! How very different they made her feel!

With Ashley, her heart's rate was soft. She was in a state between wake and slumber, numbed by a hazy light that begged her to just go with the flow. It was a very quiet way, one she knew where it led to. She knew it, yet she did not understand it, and perhaps that was why it seemed so fascinating for her. It was familiar, and yet out of her grasp. He was a dream, a golden one, and she could not help but think how easy it would be if she loved him and he loved her in return. The idea was like a soft pat on her cheek, tender yet distant. It was as light as laying on a soft bed and never raise again.

And what revenge it would be on India!

Yet, she could not live on dreams and revenge alone. There was something vibrant in her, something that wanted to instill some life in it, yet she was afraid it might become a nightmare if she put too much of it.

Rhett shook her up and down, her heart racing and dancing. She was always kept on her toes, running, jumping, wondering what would happen next. He was dangerous and exciting, unpredictable and wild. He escaped all her attempts to tame him, or to idolize him. He was light and dark, a stream that seemed calm and easy, yet that could easily overcome her if she were not careful. With him, falling in love meant just that, and the more she fell, the more she knew she might not be able to raise on her own. However… She had known how it felt to lean on him, to be cared for by him. She had known the strength of his arms, the warmth of his voice…

She had thought she would attract more of his attention if she focused on one. Yet, it seemed it had no effect at all. Just as everything she attempted.

Yet, Ashley… Ashley, while distant in his dream-like way, was never dismissive.

And revenge was a sweet thought for her still belligerent mind.

"Oh, I wasn't sleepy…" She finally managed to utter. Quick, she had to find something to distract him from questioning further! With determination, she sat on an armchair and smiled at him. "What is it, that you are reading?"

His pale brow raised a little in an amused arch.

"Oh. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus," He replied, with a little expression on his face that made her think he wasn't sure it would gain her interest.

"Could you tell me of it?"

There, still perplexed over it, he put the book down, and with a soft, deep voice, finally conceded.

He wasn't a storyteller like Pa, nor like Rhett. With him, the story was told with precision and details, and she would have been bored to tears, if the idea of someone shaping a person to life did not call to her in some way.

"… and when the creature finally opened his eyes, Victor Frankenstein realized his mistake…"

She blinked, her heart stopping.

"But why a mistake? Shouldn't it be a source of pride that such a thing was created? Certainly, it should be enough for it to be able to live on its own and be appreciated for what it is?"

She thought of Rhett, of the way she loved him and wanted him, wanted him more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.

I am your creature, she wanted to say. It is because of you that I am what I am. Certainly, it is your duty to take care of me, to love me.

Her heart fell in agony as she realized.

Rhett was a man of many things. But she could not fool herself and think he was a man of duty.

"You have a kind feminine heart," Ashley smiled lightly. "Yet, it cannot be so. It never should have been created in the first place."

"And now that it is?" She insisted.

He paused, with that look that did not quite see her.

"Now that it is, it's the creator's duty to destroy the monster he made, for it will never be able to live peacefully."

She frowned.

"it's sad. For a creature never to be loved."

"I do believe…" Ashley continued, lost in his thoughts. "If someone can love it, it must be someone that is blind to its faults. Someone who cannot help loving anyone. Most certainly, someone who isn't aware of how it had been created. Yet, it would destroy that person, for that thing has not been created to love," Another hope dashed. Could her heart bear any more? "There are creatures, in this world though, that cannot help but destroy all that is beautiful, and pure, and quiet. All this well-ordered world that has that kind of perfection alike to the symmetry that can be found in the Greeks' art…"

She tried to remember what had been said about it, tried really hard. Yet, it was certainly something good girls weren't supposed to know, and it escaped her. She knew Greek, the basic of it, yet the particularities of its art were unknown to her, described as indecent. It was something that wasn't taught in the Academy, who tried to keep their pupils pure and innocent.

Somehow, she thought she must try to know of it.

"Oh, but I must bore you with such subjects. You are so quiet and good at listening, I almost forget I can be quite obscure and dull to girls like you," He said pleasantly. "Why were you hiding here anyway, in the library?"

"Why, hiding! Why, Ashley, it was to see you," She fluttered her lashes.

He laughed lightly, a sound without true mirth. It was the laugh of an actor, she thought, that was practiced and weary, stuck in an everyday play.

"As flattering as it is, I very much doubt it," He replied. "It is too dark a place for someone as full of life as you."

She said nothing, just smiled. The dimple hurt as it appeared on her cheek.

"As a matter of fact, I was hiding from Mammy. My, if she had her way, I would never eat a thing!"

"Charming Scarlett!" He cried. "You don't need to hide from me. You can eat all you wish, your secret is safe with me. I like girls with a strong appetite."

'I like to think I can keep little girls' secrets…'

In her eyes, something different alit, yet it disappeared when he continued.

"You shouldn't read that thing," He coughed lightly. "No, you're too lively for it. It wouldn't call to you, its nature is so different from yours."

Who are you to decide who I am? She thought with irritation. Too many people do, why would I let you?

However, just as she thought it, she realized she could have let him, just like she had let Rhett. In another world, she would have been blinded by the drowsy and familiar spell of the picture he made. In another world, she would not have tried to see past it.

But certainly, he had to be more than that picture. He had to. Else, how could she justify shifting her attention from Rhett to him, when it hadn't the effect of drawing the one she loved to her?

These had been a little girl's thinking, when she had thought she was all grown up, and although she was honest enough with herself to recognize it in a sudden flash of self-awareness, the picture wasn't pleasant to her, and she tried to dismiss it.

"… Just as you shouldn't have to bear that Butler's presence. Oh, I know it's no fault of yours. What does your father think about accepting him? I shudder to think that such a man is accepted in your home and…"

"And what is your nature?" She interrupted softly, looking at him through her lashes. "You talk prettily, Ashley Wilkes, but so does he. What makes you different from the man you so defame?"

Color came to the gentleman's face. His body straightened slightly and she tilted her head, curious to know which extent she could push him.

"Are you questioning my honor?"

"If there's something I've learned with…" Rhett, she wanted to say, Rhett! The man that I love, that I can't bear being dragged by anyone. "…that man going to my home, it's that everything should be questioned, even what seems obvious. Once, knowing you were known as a gentleman would have been enough for me to try to get your attention. My vanity would have been satisfied. I'm a simple girl like that. I like what is direct and pleasing. But even simple girls cannot stay simple for long when they're forced to look beyond their noses."

She smiled, a little jeering smile that was not totally hers. Yet, her eyes were her own, and she was glaring, her cheeks flushing with the accumulation of outrages she had suffered for the days, and that she could not dismiss anymore. T here's a pleasure in corrupting innocence, Rhett had said. But she was not sure he was that aware to the extent she had gone for him. He had widened her sight, encourage her to learn, yet she realized sometimes ignorance was better to be happy. Innocence, once lost, was forever gone. Slowly, she felt her heart hardening.

Something shifted in Ashley's eyes as he examined her. A brief alertness, almost fearful. The discussion had gone farther than he had wished it to.

"You're right. I'm no better than he if my honor can't bear questioning."

He dusted meticulously his breeches, thinking.

"What I am? I am what I'm supposed to be, I guess," He declared carefully. "I've never learned to be anyone else, and I don't want to be."

He leaned on his forearms, his hands joined and eyes thoughtful.

"There's a poem that comes to me, suddenly. Would you hear it?"

She nodded quietly and waited. From far away, his voice came, weary, with a melancholy she wanted to fight like a child would slumber. Yet, even her anger had faded away, and she almost forgot why she felt so.

One word is too often profaned

For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdained

For thee to disdain it;

One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother,

And pity from thee more dear

Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,

But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above

And the heavens rejects not, -

The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow,

The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow?

For once, his eyes did not seem far away, and he looked at her, as if there was something he was looking for, some kind of understanding. He did not say the name of the author, and Scarlett did not recognize it. There was a hint of admiration in his eyes as he looked at her, yet she felt this admiration was not really on herself, but on what she represented, and that did not quite please her. So, she closed her eyes and listened for a while to the words that were uttered.

Once, these words would have meant nothing for her. Alignments of words that were designed to be pretty, but that had no sense she could grasp, for they were not direct and without ambiguity. Once, she would have stopped at some words she did not know, and she would have dismissed it all in frustration.

Now, she knew how to dismiss what she did not know to grasp the sense of the whole content, and it felt sometimes more of a curse than a blessing.

She looked at him and paused. Just lightly, her heart slowed its pace as her breath caught in her throat.

It suddenly came to her that what she had for Rhett was not just a mere fancy, a girl's fantasy. A girl's fantasy would have been destroyed after so many accounts of his wrongdoings. A girl's fantasy would have been bright and airy, a perfect picture she would have kept jealously to herself, for it pleased her.

A girl's fantasy was what she felt for Ashley.

No, her love for Rhett was earthy and crude, and his faults came to her as much as his qualities. It was not something that stayed in thought and glory. It was something that begged to live and cry out.

Yet, it was something that could utterly destroy her.

"Thank you, Ashley," She said softly. "The girls will soon be waking up. I should get going."

He blinked, and a blinded hope came to him, that the discussion might have no consequence at all, no understanding created.

"Of course," He said precipitately. "Forgive me for bothering you with my nonsense. You must think me a boor."

She blinked, then smiled. A silly little smile.

"Fiddle-dee-dee, what you said was really pretty, and you know I like pretty things."

His shoulders relaxed in an almost relief. No complexity from that simple charming girl. His well-ordered world was safe.

She was left once again with her disillusions. She bowed and left the room, but did not join the others. She wandered a little in the rose garden, following the way to the labyrinth, hoping to lose herself in the greenness. Yet, it was not complex enough to do so, and soon enough she was in the middle of it, with a marble bench and an elegant fountain for birds in cast iron. She did not admire the delicacy of the sculpture of the bird, which leaned slightly to the dancing water. She just sat and waited for the melancholy to fade away.

She thanked God for the girls to be still in their naps, and the men to be drinking inside. That spot was generally for girls and their suitors wanting some privacy, hoping to escape the chaperones.

She knew it. She already tried it. She had even been kissed there, just by curiosity over something she never experimented. Yet, it was no use. Kisses could not mean anything, with the wrong person.

She wondered for a moment what it would feel, to be kissed by Rhett.

She bit her lip, upset.

Why, it seemed as if she was searching to be hurt!

She had wanted to make him bite his words, to make him regret. However, she realized now doing so was quite an uncomfortable position for her, and that it meant in a way he was still controlling her.

No, she had to live for herself, be the one she wanted to be!

"Oh, there you are!"

Startled, Scarlett almost jumped on her feet, before shaking her head. Sun glinted through the coppery auburn of Randa Tarleton's hair, making some threads almost golden. In such a light, she was almost beautiful, if it wasn't for the crooked white teeth that glinted as she smiled, and the too pale yellow of her dress.

"Randa…" Scarlett sighed with irritation. Couldn't she just be let at peace, for once? "Are you here as well to tell me what my faults are?"

"No. I think you already know them," Randa let out a sheepish grin as she fell quite ungraciously at her side, the hoopskirt cringing as she did so. She winced a little in pain, before tilting her head toward Scarlett. "Yet…"

Scarlett suppressed a snort.

"Yet what?"

"Funny, I always thought you were just a greedy little girl, spoiled and brash. And now I think you may have more depth than I thought."

"Me? I'm as deep as a pool on the mud after the rain. I don't know what you mean."

Randa snorted.

"Depth is overrated anyway. Strength is better," She said. "Ma always told me there were many well-bred ladies that are just too high up their horses, with a thin blood that ought to be strengthened a little."

"Your Ma is a strange woman."

"Sure, she is," Randa grinned fondly. "But I wouldn't have any other."

Scarlett said nothing, numbed by envy. How many times had she wished her relationship with her mother were the same? How many times had she felt as if she was betraying her?

As if feeling her shifting mood, Randa laid a hesitant hand on her shoulder.

"Hetty is the perceptive one, the empathetic one. She's the one who would have managed to say the right words to comfort. Me, I'm the one who's irritating and pesky," She jested. "You've got spunk, and a good head on your shoulders, Scarlett O'Hara, and I like it, for I do have some of it as well. Mind if we share it to shake some things up?"

A genuine smile came to Scarlett's lips, and she felt as if she were dropping a heavy burden from her shoulder.

"I'm not sure the County would survive it."

Randa's grin widened.

"Good."