Dear Readers, good evening! I still have time to post a little treat for the 14th of February! :)
Do you know what "vinegar valentines" are?
I think one of our heroes could make such a joke, as always, without thinking about the consequences :)
Enjoy reading! :)
You know, what to do :)
https//polinka22malinka/775487337001091072/a-mischievous-little-story-about-the-importance-of?source=share
P.S. Oh yes, "Trying to remember" is waiting for me and you, of course I haven't forgotten about our heroes and will post the update soon. Sorry for the delay.
I own nothing in regard to GWTW.
Scarlett ran quickly into her bedroom, shut the door behind her and leaned back against it, covering her face with palms.
"God, what a shame! What an idiot I am! I hate you! I hate you, Rhett Butler!" she whispered desperately.
She fumbled in the folds of her skirt for the crumpled paper card in her pocket, took it out and looked at it with contempt and resentment. What had attracted her attention half an hour ago with its beautiful drawing, smooth paper and even a peculiar aroma, now evoked only a feeling of anger at the giver and annoyance at herself for her gullibility.
It was only for a moment that she had let her guard down! In desperation, Scarlett opened the crumpled card and, seeing the ugly drawing again, threw it on the floor and stamped her foot like an offended child!
Walking quickly across the room, stepping deliberately on the unfortunate sheet of paper, young woman sat down at the dressing table and began to quickly pull the hairpins out of her hair, which she usually kept in a tight bun for hospital work.
Looking at the clock, which showed only two o'clock in the afternoon, she realized that she had plenty of time before the evening, and when Prissy was finished with Wade, she could call her in to do her hair for the evening.
At the thought of the coming evening and the little Valentine's Day ball that Dr Meade had asked the ladies of the committee to organize "to raise the spirits of the convalescent fighters", Scarlett did not smile, but furrowed her brow, knowing that the meeting was inevitable.
"That obnoxious man! That rascal will definitely be there!" she thought, reaching for her hairbrush.
As soon as the hairbrush touched her head, she looked at her reflection, at the slight blush that remained on her cheeks, and began to nervously brush her hair, remembering recent events.
After her shift at the hospital, where she had been given light work today and could flirt with the convalescents, Scarlett had managed to take off her white apron a little earlier, put on a cape over her black dress, and after telling Melanie that she would be waiting for her outside, she ran happily out of the building, thinking of the evening ahead.
She noticed a familiar carriage and this man who had been creeping into her life for six months, ever since that July Bazaar. Joking, playful, like a thief sure he'd never be caught, he'd come to Aunt Pitty's house on Peachtree Street with another box of bon-bons, ribbons, hairpins and a polite smile on his lips. And those two fools, her aunt and Melly, oh, they'd look him in the mouth, listen to his every word, but somehow they didn't see that devilish light in his eyes, that mocking glint, that grin he gave only her and no one else.
Rhett waved to her, she smiled and walked towards him. "Nobody's going to spoil my mood, not even that varmint," Scarlett thought as she approached him, squinting against the bright sun.
"Hello, Mrs Hamilton!" Rhett smiled broadly at her and gave her a joking bow, "I see you're in a good mood."
Scarlett just chuckled and nodded, "Hello, Rhett!"
She stepped closer to him, and while he adjusted his hat and coat, she gave him a quick, interested look. He was as impeccably dressed as ever, with a slight smile on his lips, and he seemed cheerful.
"Are you going home, Mrs Hamilton? Do you need a drive?" he asked obligingly.
Scarlett just shrugged. He often drove her and Melly after hospital, listening to their silly talks with a polite look and even nodding in return. She still couldn't understand why this man hung around her, bringing her gifts and often watching her closely. It was a perverse pleasure for him to annoy her with his jokes and then, when she sent him away, to come back with another nice trifle and apologize theatrically, which flattered her vanity. No ball (if he was in Atlanta) was without him, and he always got his dances with her.
"Oh, from the outside it might look as if we were a couple in love," she sometimes thought nervously, but she waved it away when she remembered all his jokes and phrases like, "God help the man who would love you, Mrs Hamilton, for you are so vain, so selfish and so cruel that you would break that fool's heart without even realizing it!"
Sometimes she really wished he would fall in love with her, oh, she would have her revenge on him! Every night, after a quick thought about Ashley and a sigh, she would lie there with a mischievous smile, looking at the shadows on the ceiling and thinking of a speech to put that obnoxious man in his place when he confessed to her!
But day after day, week after week, month after month passed, and she didn't wait for confession, and decided she didn't care. She didn't want to waste time trying to understand his looks and phrases when she was so young and when some of the joys, that had been taken from her by her hasty marriage and then widowhood, were beginning to return to her life.
"Scarlett," he called to her, and she was distracted from her thoughts and looked at him questioningly. "And what thoughts are going on in that lovely head of yours under that awful mourning bonnet?" he asked with interest, looking into her face.
She wrinkled her nose slightly at his words about her outfit and mourning, but had no time to reply when she heard him continue, "Perhaps you are thinking of how many hearts you will take back into your claws, My Dear. At the ball tonight?"
At the mention of the ball, she smiled and simply replied, "Oh, Rhett, I'm looking forward to it! It's been a whole month without any entertainment since the winter events!"
"Well, actually, the war, Darling..." he hummed, seeing the childish frown on her brow.
"Ah, don't remind me of it, Rhett! It's such a bore, you know that! No handsome men, no pretty fabrics, even no coffee in the mornings..."
"And I hear this from the widow of a hero?" he replied, chuckling.
"Ah, shut up!" she hissed, looking around as if afraid someone might hear them, "You don't believe in the war or the Glorious Cause either, do you?" she concluded confidently.
He looked at her carefully, humming, but replied, "Perhaps, Darling..."
She smiled and he continued, "Well, Darling, you and I are very much alike, like I told you before, we practically have two faces with you, so..."
"I don't think so, Rhett Butler," she tried to cut him off, sensing a catch in his words, but he deftly pulled something out of his inside jacket pocket and a moment later Scarlett saw the paper card in front of her.
Her hand timidly reached out to feel the delicate lace that decorated the card, to run her fingertips lightly over the dried flowers, even to bring it closer to her face to smell the aroma. And at the same time, a thousand thoughts flashed through her mind, that he was giving her a card, today, now, in secret, that he wanted to tell her something...
"Oh..." she thought, touching the card lightly with her fingers.
She looked up at him, and suddenly, seeing his intense gaze, which could not normally understand, she realized that had forgotten all the speeches she had rehearsed so many times before going to bed. Scarlett was suddenly not amused, not amused at all, but trembling inside with anticipation and fear.
"Is it for me?" she asked, lowering her eyes and noticing that her voice was too quiet.
Rhett replied curtly, "Yes, for you."
For a moment Scarlett was afraid again, for once she opened the paper card there would be no going back. But she wasn't a coward, so with breathless joy she opened it and...
... "Oh..." Scarlett exhaled and close her eyes for a moment, because she thought it wasn't real. But when she heard him giggle, she realized it was not her imagination.
Before her eyes appeared the ugliest drawing of a woman she had ever seen. A woman with a huge head and two faces, and an unnaturally small figure and thin waist. The faces looked in different directions, one with a fake smile and the other with a wrinkled nose...
There were more words, but Scarlett did not dare read them, for she felt she had been deceived as badly as when the Tarleton twins, who had admired her agility so much, had not taken her on a camping trip to hunt wild hares.
She was seven years old and had been so hurt and angry with them that had cried alone in the stable so that no one in the house could see her. Now she was much worse.
Scarlett hesitated to look up at him, hearing his merry laughter, pretending to read the text and trying to form the semblance of a smile.
Finally, she looked up at him, smiled crookedly and said, "Is this another one of your jokes, you, rascal?"
Rhett grinned and replied, adjusting the scarf around his neck, "Really, Scarlett, it's funny, isn't it? I saw it in a bookshop in London and immediately thought of you..."
"Me?"
"Yes, about you and me too, look, it's about us and the way we try to behave in this society, smiling at matrons and the old Doctor and..."
Scarlett didn't listen to him, she had a sudden urge to throw the ugly card in his face and run back to the hospital, but then heard Mellie's voice greeting Captain Butler behind her and for the first time she thanked the heavens for having a sister-in-law.
She couldn't remember how they got home, she tried to answer something in one-word phrases.
Without saying goodbye, she had jumped out of the carriage and now sat in the silence of her bedroom, listening to the hands of the clock counting down the seconds until she would meet him at the ball, and thinking feverishly of how could get even with him.
Biting her lower lip lightly, she tried to find a way of behaving that would not only not show her hurt, but also teach him a lesson.
He had told her many times that his favourite pastime in Atlanta was to watch "how far fate and lack of common sense would take such a coquette". Scarlett didn't understand that phrase, which he usually said to her in private, but she didn't need to.
"If he wants to watch me and spend time with me like this, I won't let him," she said stubbornly to her reflection in the mirror, and then added, "Let him listen to Aunt Pitty's silly talks in the parlour, or dance with that mouse Melly," grinning to herself.
For a moment her reflection in the mirror seemed so strange and so familiar at the same time, and Scarlett looked at herself in surprise, realizing that she looked so much like her grandmother Solange, whom she had only seen in a portrait in Tara.
She had once overheard Mammy's talking to a maid, telling the story of how her grandmother had been the cause of a duel between a captain and an earl. "She was well brought up, but the way she treated her gentlemen, so much confidence and contempt, our young Misses have yet to learn. But they ate out of her hands, practically," the old nanny said in a low, nagging voice, and Scarlett listened with bated breath.
"It will be MY game," she thought, smiling at her reflection.
That evening, as she stepped out of the carriage in front of a house on Peachtree Street, she heard a familiar drawling voice and turned her head.
"Are you offended?" He was standing beside his carriage, so relaxed and confident at the same time, a tall, statuesque man, wearing a black suit and a grey coat over it.
"Oh, it's you... I didn't notice you, Rhett Butler," she replied, stopping, reluctant to approach him.
"Hmm, I didn't know I was so inconspicuous..." he took a few steps towards her and Scarlett, holding her breath for a moment, remembered Solange Robbillard's portrait in Tara, grinned out of the corner of her mouth and looked at him mockingly, like her grandmother.
"Did my joke make you so angry, Darling? You haven't given me a single dance, even though you know, Mrs Hamilton, that I am the best partner for you in this town. So what is it? A little "paper card" joke?"
he said, looking at her face with interest, finding something so attractive and unfamiliar in it.
"A card? Oh, I'd forgotten about it..." she began in a calm tone, trying to look straight into his eyes. For the first time, Scarlett felt like she was in a real fight with him. She could feel it in her skin, goosebumps running down her spine, but the black dress, cape and gloves were on her side.
"You know, Scarlett," he suddenly interrupted her in a deliberately calm, polite tone, "I'm sorry if I've offended you in any way with this joke, Darling..."
She took a deep breath, smiled mischievously and interrupted him too, mocking, "Darling, it would take more than a silly paper card to offend such a, as you like to say, 'vain Clayton County coquette', wouldn't it, Captain Butler?"
Rhett was silent and stared at her expectantly, trying to figure out her plan, but she seemed quite unconcerned and continued, "Besides, you don't think your card was the only one I got that day, do you?"
She looked him slyly in the eye, smiled and waited for his reply.
She never got another card, of course. Once, before the war, Ashley had given her a beautiful heart-shaped card with lilac flowers on the cover. It was from Europe, with an obscure inscription in French that looked like a poem. She was too shy to show it to her mother to help her translate it so as not to put Ashley in difficult situation, so she just looked at it by candlelight before bed for a couple of weeks. But soon she lost interest in it and stuffed it into one of the books she rarely opened and forgot about it.
Now, during the war, postcards were hard to come by, especially for the soldiers in the hospital who were her main admirers and beaux. Rhett didn't need to know, though he looked at her with a mixture of interest and suspicion.
Still, he cleared his throat and said with a polite smile, "Then there are no misunderstandings between us, are there, Scarlett? Are we still friends, Mrs Hamilton?"
Scarlett felt that she must have the last word in this conversation, so replied with the same mischievous twinkle in her eye, "Were we ever friends, Captain Butler?" and then added, almost in a whisper, leaning slightly towards him, "Perhaps you have just made an enemy who will not stop fighting you?"
Rhett smiled wider, his tense posture relaxed, and he said cheerfully, "Pardon me, Scarlett, there's already a war going on here... Do I have to fight with you now, Darling?"
She just smiled and said mysteriously with a flutter of her eyelashes, "Not with me, Captain Butler, not with me..."
She intrigued him, but just as Rhett opened his mouth to continue their very interesting conversation, they heard the door of the house open, and Miss Pittypat appeared in her over-stitched light blue dress, with its ruffles, (like a layer cake) and began to lament loudly about the cold weather, the icy wind, and Scarlett had scarcely time to say to Rhett, "Good night, Captain Butler," for she turned quickly and went, wishing to kiss Aunt Pitty, who usually annoyed her. "What a good moment she appeared!" thought Scarlett as she walked towards the house, not looking back, with a triumphant smile on her lips, knowing she had the last word.
And Scarlett was really playing her "game". The confidence she'd shown him at first became more real with each of her antics, whether it was the dances she'd supposedly promised him, but ended up fluttering her eyelashes and smiling as if she'd forgotten about them. Or the way she didn't go down to the parlour to join Aunt Pitty and Melanie for the coffee he'd brought as a present. Oh, she could hear the aroma of freshly brewed coffee even from her bedroom upstairs, but she was stubborn as a mule! Or the way she'd defiantly get up from her seat when he approached, take any lady she knew under her arm and went away.
She did not know if it hurt him, but felt his constant glances at her, which made her feeling goosebumps on her skin, his desire to be alone with her more often, which he could not fulfil, and which he tried to hide with an indifferent smile.
Once, standing near her and Captain Randall at one of the house concerts, Rhett heard her jokingly say, "Ah, you varmint," and, turning his head with a smile, saw that she was not addressing him.
That same evening, when he caught up with her at the carriage and nodded to Uncle Peter, Rhett spoke quickly and quietly, "Are you calling everyone 'varmint' now, Honey? I thought it was just my prerogative to use that 'name'."
The unfamiliar word 'prerogative' had confused Scarlett at first, but the timbre of his voice, the way he spoke with deliberate politeness, was so similar to the voice he'd used during his arguments with the Doctor, and when the talk usually was over he'd come over to her, lazily light a cigar, only to say 'What a pompous goat' and she knew he was hurt, if only a little.
Scarlett smiled, shrugged her shoulders and only said good night to him as she got into the carriage.
She had learnt to play her part and catch his glances, which amused her so much that Scarlett, celebrating her victory, didn't notice that May had come and Captain Butler had disappeared from town.
The rumours were different: he had gone to sell ships, gone to the front, another blockade trip, someone said he had only gone to the North, and someone said he had gone to Europe for good, they called England...
Scarlett listened to all these rumours and although she realized she had won and punished him, but she also had punished herself because they had enjoyed being friends, even though he often behaved like a scoundrel.
"It will be boring here without Rhett," she thought as tried to sleep again on a hot June night.
But in the early days of July there was a knock at the door in the afternoon, and she had to open it herself, because Uncle Peter had driven Melanie and Pitty to another silly sewing circle, and she had to pretend having a headache to stay at home.
When she opened the door, Scarlett was surprised to see Rhett Butler himself, holding a round box and smiling politely.
"Good afternoon, Mrs Hamilton," he said and his eyes were bright with amusement.
Oh, it had been so long since they had spoken and she missed him so much that she forgave his silly joke about the paper card and opened the door wider, smiling and saying, "Oh, it's you, Rhett..."
He smiled back at her and, having been given permission to enter, walked quickly into the parlour.
"So it's you," she started the conversation as she followed him into the room.
Rhett turned to her and smiled, bowing slightly.
"At your service, Mrs Hamilton!"
"And you're just as varmint, Rhett!" she replied, laughing and realizing that she was very glad to see him.
"How long have you been in Atlanta?"
"A couple of hours..."
Scarlett looked at him in surprise and giggled, "You missed Aunt Pitty so much that you came straight to her house?"
He grinned and barely nodded.
"Then I must disappoint you, she and Melly..."
"Never mind Scarlett, I'll wait and in the meantime we'll have a talk with you..."
She looked at him with surprise, but nodded. Rhett sat down in a chair by the window and made some sort of conversation, asking her about the news in town. But in the middle of it he suddenly got up and walked over to the table where a round box stood. She approached him too and asked with interest, "Is there a surprise in there?"
"There's a present for you, My Dear, from Paris itself..."
Scarlett looked at him warily, remembering the last "present" from London, but he lifted the lid of the box himself and she peered inside with interest, noticing the paper rustling like a curious cat.
At the sight of the enchanting bonnet, trimmed with emerald silk and green satin ribbons, she held her breath and her hands involuntarily reached for the exquisite piece.
"Do you like it, Scarlett?" he suddenly asked her softly.
She just nodded, not taking her eyes off the bonnet, knowing she would sell her soul for it, not just to Rhett Butler, but to the devil himself!
"Then try it on," he said with a smile, and walked back to the chair, leaving her alone with the gift.
Rhett suspected that the joke with the paper card would turn out to be silly, but he hadn't expected such consequences, and he didn't like being invisible for her. Of course, he could just forget about this flighty girl and...
"Does it suit me?" her thin voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Oh, it's awful!" he said, getting up quickly to adjust the bonnet on her head, muttering something about war and girls, and fancy things.
Scarlett took the ribbons from his hands with a smile and turned to the mirror to adjust them again, admiring herself without noticing his gaze behind her.
Suddenly she remembered something, turned to him with a slight frown and said, "I'll buy that bonnet from you, Rhett!"
He grinned and replied, moving a little closer to her, "It's a present, Scarlett. I think I owe you a real present..."
She looked at him carefully and wanted to shake her head negatively, but when she touched the silk ribbons, she couldn't.
Carefully untying the ribbons and removing the bonnet, but still holding it in her hands, Scarlett said quietly, "It's indecent, Captain Butler..."
"I think we've left a lot of decency behind with you, Mrs Hamilton..."
"What do you expect from me?" suddenly she asked him bluntly, smiling mischievously.
He took another step, stood quite close to her and looked thoughtfully at her face, lingering on her lips.
Scarlett froze inside, afraid to move, then involuntarily licked her lips and heard his deep, husky voice: "You should be kissed! And often... That's your problem... You should be kissed, by someone who knows how."
She could feel his breath and tried to ask him boldly, but it was only a whisper, "And that would be you?"
He didn't answer, only his eyes gliding over her face again.
"He wouldn't dare," she thought smugly, throwing her head back slightly, covering her eyes and gasping at his closeness, hoping she was wrong.
"She's not expecting this," he thought determinedly, moving closer to her lips, breathing in her scent, hoping he was wrong.
The touch of his lips, the embrace, his hands on her waist... The thrill and power at the same time... The mingled heartbeats and tastes of each other's lips...
He broke the kiss, trying to even out his breathing, but not letting her go.
"Is this your new game, Captain Butler?" she whispered.
"Maybe I'm not playing anymore, Scarlett..."