FF: Virgil in Hell
Title: Virgil in Hell
Author: Ellie
Rating: PG
Summary: Rhett helps Scarlett flee Atlanta.
Author’s Note: Some of the dialogue is paraphrased from the novel, which isn’t mine. The story departs from there.
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Virgil in Hell
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He turned the creaking, battered wagon onto Peachtree Street and wondered just what he was getting himself into. The last time he’d seen Scarlett, he’d offered to make her his mistress, and she’d ordered him away.
That had been over a month ago. He’d stayed, because he had nowhere else in particular to go, and to make sure she made it through the coming carnage. The plan was to keep an eye on her from a safe distance, fiddling and watching Rome burn. But somehow, he’d ended up involved. She may have rebuffed him, but he still wanted her, and wanted her badly enough to agree to assist in this madness.
As he pulled up to the Hamilton house, he saw Scarlett waiting on the porch, looking as if the only thing keeping her upright was the pillar she was leaning against. She called his name, barely discernable against the distant rumblings of war, as he climbed down from the wagon. He didn’t answer at first, simply tried to gauge her state of mind as he strode confidently up the walk.
Stumbling down the steps, she nearly tumbled into his arms, just keeping herself together as he stopped in front of her and spoke. “Fine weather we’re having. I hear you’re planning a trip?” He hoped his jesting tone would spark enough temper in her to color her pale face and give her the bravado to make it through whatever foolish endeavor she was planning.
“Don’t you dare joke with me right now, or I’ll never speak to you again!” Her voice trembled as she spoke, obviously not rising to bait that would normally be enough to send her railing.
“You’re not afraid?” He looked at her with feigned astonishment, and she glowered at him.
“Of course I am! If you had any sense, you would be, too! But we don’t have time for this now. We’ve got to get out of here.”
His mind flashed through images of the two of them, dancing in Paris, dining in the Bahamas, sitting idly in the Mexican sun. He’d take her anywhere she wanted to go. “At your service, madam. But where were you planning on going? The Yankees have the town surrounded, except for the McDonough Road our army is using to evacuate. And if we follow that road, the Army will take the horse, which while not much of an animal, was considerably difficult to procure. Just where were you planning on heading?”
She was trembling as he spoke, and looked close to fainting at his mention of the McDonough Road. “I’m going home.”
“Home? To Tara?”
“Yes, to Tara. Oh, Rhett, we must hurry!” She looked frantic.
For a moment he could only stare at her and wonder whether it was blind foolishness or naïveté that inspired such a request. “Tara? God Almighty, Scarlett, you can’t go to Tara! There’s been fighting around Jonesboro all day, the Yankee army will be swarming all over the County by now. You can’t go through the middle of the army!”
“I will! I will go home!” Tears were streaming down her face, and her voice broke to a scream as she pounded her fists against his chest. “You can’t stop me, I will go home!”
He couldn’t control the impulse to take her in his arms, wrapping them tenderly around her slender, shaking form. At that moment, the world around them was far from his mind; his only thought was to protect her. Almost as soon as the idea occurred to him, he knew he was lost. It was more than mere desire for her body that had him holding here on the steps of her Aunt Pitty’s porch, wanting to comfort and shelter her as the world fell down around them. He stroked her hair and murmured reassuring nothings, and, as he kissed the crown of her head, he admitted to himself that he was dangerously in love with her.
“Shh, don’t cry. You will go home, my brave girl.” She felt so warm and pliant in his arms, as if she were perfectly willing to allow him to hold her forever. Given half a chance, he would. The very desire frightened him more than the madness of the world around them.
He pulled away from the embrace, trying to distance himself from his own emotions. Preferring not to think of them for now, he pulled out his handkerchief and allowed her to dry her eyes and blow her nose. Then he set her in motion once more, considerably more composed, helping organize and load the rest of her family into the pitiful excuse for a wagon.
The idea of transporting Melanie all the way to Tara in that wagon was not an appealing one, but he had no choice but to carry her as gently as possible down the stairs and hope that consciousness would not be with her for long. Her journey down the stairs would be the easiest part of this trip.
As he turned the wagon west, an explosion shook the air around them, and Scarlett jumped on the hard wagon seat, landing several inches closer to him than she’d previously been sitting.
“That must be the ammunition trains,” he said matter-of-factly as fire licked the sky over distant rooftops. “Why they didn’t get them out this morning when they had the chance I’ll never know.”
“Must…must we go through that fire?” Her voice did not shake, but he could hear the effort it took for her to keep it from doing so.
“Not if we move quickly.” He felt guilty forcing the poor horse into a steady trot, but knew he would feel far worse if anything were to befall the people he’d now taken responsibility for.
Under his guidance, and with steady urging from his makeshift whip, the horse carried them ever closer to the flames. Scarlett moved closer to him the nearer the flames drew, going so far as to take her arm in his hand as she sat shivering on the seat next to him. The urge to comfort and reassure her was nearly overwhelming, but he only looked at her, hoping his outward confidence in the face of this inferno would be enough. He would be their Virgil, and must content himself with that role.
He handed her a pistol, and he had to smirk as she tucked it next to her dead husband’s. Had she ever really been married? He’d like to show her what marriage truly could be, and for a moment, sitting still as a line of soldiers passed in flaming silhouette, he indulged the fantasy of spiriting her away from this, of making her his wife. Then he was angry, at himself for such daydreams and at the entire maddened world that caused them.
“Take a good look, my dear. One day you’ll want to tell your grandchildren how your watched the last of the Glorious Cause retreating.” Bitterness spiked his tone, harsher than he intended the sentiment, but it released some of his frustration.
Scarlett only looked at him sourly, as if she’d like to fling him into the fires herself. Yet her hand remained tight on his arm as she watched the retreating soldiers pass, the fires giving her face another worldly glow only heightened by her anger at him. Never had she looked so beautiful to him, and never was he more certain that he had to retreat from her before she destroyed him, just as surely as the Army was retreating before Sherman’s forces.
With this realization, he galvanized himself and brought the whip down on the horse once more, sending the wagon lurching forward toward the flames. He focused all his attention on what must be done, and was almost unaware of the raging fires or straggling citizens as he guided them through the streets of Atlanta. Only the hot, clammy hand clenched around his bicep seared into his consciousness with more intensity than the heat of the burning city. He hated himself for it, hated her for the love she stirred in him.
When she tried to thank him as the wagon rattled through the outskirts of town, he could not keep his eyes from betraying him as he looked at her. She shrank away from him, afraid of what she saw in his face even if she didn’t understand it. He let out a sigh of frustration and disappointment that was lost in the noisy night.
It felt like hours before they were alone on the dark road to Rough and Ready, the flame-tinged sky fading behind them. He stopped the horse for a rest, and gathered himself for the confrontation he knew was coming. Scarlett urged him on, and for the first time since they’d left Aunt Pitty’s, he spared her a long, assessing look. She was no longer shivering with fear or adrenaline, now looking only worried and slightly lost.
“Are you still planning on doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Getting through to Tara. Both our cavalry and the Yankee Army are between you and Tara.”
“Oh, yes, please, let’s just hurry. I know a way, we don’t have to take the main roads if only we can get close enough to Rough and Ready.” There was something so childlike about her determination that nearly broke through his resolve.
“You might make it then. If you don’t run into the Yankees. Or if you don’t run into Steve Lee’s cavalry wanting your horse.”
“If I…?”
“Yes, if you.” He tried to pretend that his voice hadn’t nearly cracked on that. That it wasn’t nearly killing him to have to leave her. But he couldn’t stay with her.
“Rhett, you…You’re not going to take us?”
“No my dear, I’m leaving you at this juncture.”
She looked panicked, as if unsure whether to laugh or cry or slap him. Echoes of the night’s earlier flames danced in her eyes as she stared at him like a trapped fox.
He nearly laughed, at himself, at her, at the whole mixed up world. “I’m going to join the Army, dear Scarlett.”
“Oh, stop your joking and let’s go home.”
“Dare you doubt my devotion to our most Glorious Cause?” He couldn’t help but laugh at it all now. The only thing he could find to escape from her was to join a loosing Cause.
She looked truly frightened now, with tears once again threatening to spill down her cheeks. He felt a few of them fall, dropping down on his wrist as he guided her down from the wagon and kissed her hand.
“Selfish to the end. Think of the service I’ll be doing by joining our boys at the eleventh hour.”
“Oh,” she cried, “why are you doing this? Leaving us here!”
He laughed. “Perhaps it’s sentimentality. Perhaps it’s shame.” The sentimentality of loving someone he knew was not capable of reciprocating his feelings. The shame of being unable to face those feelings. He knew he could never explain to her, and so couched it all in deepest sarcasm and gambled on her confusion.
“Ashamed? You should be, leaving us here, alone and helpless!” she sputtered.
“Scarlett, you’re the least helpless person I know! God help the Yankes should they get you.”
He pulled her away from the carriage and into the darkness. The world around them was silent, stillness enveloping them as he held her. “I don’t expect you to understand. Hell, I hardly understand myself. But I want you to know before I go, in spite of what I said last month, that I do love you Scarlett.” His hands caressed her bare arms, sliding up to knead her tense shoulders. “I love you because we’re so alike. Neither of us would care if the whole world burned around us, so long as we were safe and comfortable.”
She allowed him to pull her close, and he allowed himself the brief indulgence that they were alone in the world, free to do as they wished. As her body came in contact with his, he could feel her stirring unconsciously, drawing closer to him. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider my offer? You could send a soldier off with beautiful memories.” If she’d only agree, if only she’d ask him to stay for her not them, if she’d only admit that she felt something too, he knew he would not leave, could not leave her. It would take so little.
He kissed her, giving free rein to the passion he’d always kept so tightly in check around her. The way she fell loose in his arms, but wrapped her own around his shoulders, he knew she’d never been kissed his way before. His lips trailed down her neck, touching the hammering pulse at her throat, and knew she was as affected as he.
Then Wade’s frightened voice broke the silence of their world, and she drew away from him. For a second she seemed dazed, then she slapped him with surprising force.
“They were all right! You aren’t a gentleman!”
Touching a palm to his cheek, he could only laugh. “My dear, how inadequate.” Had he really expected her to profess her love for him? Whatever his heart had wished, his intellect had known better, had known he was less likely to be wounded in by war than by her careless sentiment. “Goodbye, Scarlett.”
He turned and walked away, refusing to look back, knowing the darkness of night would blot her from his view and hide the tear he allowed to escape down his cheek. But just over the hill he settled onto an uprooted tree and waited. After several minutes, the shuffle of hooves and creak of wood announced the progress of the wagon towards Tara.
“God bless you, Scarlett. May we both come through the slaughter to see a better end than this,” he said, rising. Brushing the dust from his linen pants, he walked away from the woman he loved.
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Purgatory
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He had visited this region as a younger man, and remembered it as the scene of pastoral idylls, of hunting and picnics and rolling verdant fields. Now he sat against a crooked fencepost and surveyed the countryside as he ate a stale biscuit. What was once presumably a cow pasture was now only half-fenced, with many boards missing and broken, and what would have once been lush acres was now only a dusty, debris and weed littered field.
The first hints of warm weather taunted him as the breeze blew away crumbling bits of biscuit. With a weary sigh and a bit of pain in his knees, Rhett stood and for the first time regretted the loss of his fine linen suit. It had been most inappropriate to wear off to war, and he’d soon abandoned it for more practical attire. Had he planned ahead, he would not have simply grabbed money and run from Atlanta; he would have taken the time to change clothes as well.
Not that he regretted his choice in footwear. While most of the Confederate army had been lacking shoes when he met up with them, he was afraid that the fine French leather of his shoes would soon put him in company with them. But they had proved sturdier than they appeared, so while looking much the worse for mud and miles, he had soles between his feet and the dusty road.
If only he knew which road to follow. Eventually, he knew he would have to return to London to lay claim to the wealth he’d deposited in the banks there. The same quixotic desire that sent him off to war left him desiring to return to Charleston, to see his family and make sure they were taken care of, whether his father wished to see him or not. Strongly suppressed was a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him to go profit from the inevitable rebuilding of Atlanta. The sensible thing, of course, would be for him to head north, away from the ruins of the Confederacy and towards the friends and politicians he knew there.
Picking up the frayed, dingy gray sack carrying a few essential possessions, Rhett surveyed the available routes, then looked heavenward to gauge the position of the sun. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled a shining, ticking watch out from the breast pocket of his jacket, now with three fewer buttons than when he’d acquired it seven months ago. He carefully tucked the watch away again, tracing his grandfather’s initials with a dirty thumb as it slipped through his fingers.
This was not the first time he’d walked into an uncertain future with only what he carried. Even given the ravaged state of the nation, his journey now would be less difficult than his progress after being ousted from Charleston as a young man. Then, with no money, family, or friends to fall back on, he’d been given a horse and sent out of town, to make of himself what he would.
His father had wanted to be rid of the horse nearly as much as he’d wanted to be rid of Rhett, but boy and beast suited one another well in their role as outsiders. Rhett won enough money racing the horse to buy a train ticket west, and sold the horse for enough profit to provide some financing for whatever he chose to do whenever he decided to step off the train.
He’d known how to play cards, as all young men did. But on that train ride west, he’d learned how to be a gambler. The small savings he’d put aside had slowly grown. By the time the train reached the end of the line in California, he’d amassed enough money that he felt safe trying his hand at prospecting.
The small fortune he’d made then had mostly been reinvested, but some portion of it was still locked away in a British bank vault. One day, if he lived to old age, he wanted to be able to pull out a piece of the gold that had made him. Mostly, though, it had simply served to make him more gold. The rough and tumble life of a prospector had been fun for a few years, but he’d grown restless and bored, and realized that a small fortune could be transformed into a much larger one with a little savvy.
As he walked through ravaged Virginia, all Rhett had was savvy. A few coins still clinked in his pocket and deep in his bag, enough to buy him food during his travel, unless the opportunity presented itself to chance it into something larger.
Chance, he knew, worked in mysterious ways. As dusk fell, he thought of the risk he’d taken in bringing Scarlett out of Atlanta. He’d been reasonably certain of their physical safety, but had not been prepared for the emotional factors such an endeavor would encounter. Part of him still wondered what might have happened if he hadn’t left her there, if he had simply let the horse breathe before driving her on home. Did her home still stand? Would he have been welcome in it? He didn’t know if he could have stayed under the same roof with her and remember his manners. There had been something so primal that night, something that had appealed to his deeper nature and made him realize that it was no mere infatuation he felt for this young lady, who often acted so much the child.
He’d gone to war to forget her. But she’d haunted him these months, her eyes glowing in his dreams as they had that night in Atlanta’s flames. Rhett Butler never forgot anything., least of all Scarlett O’Hara.
Not for the first time in these many months, he wondered how she was faring as he made his way towards Washington.
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Atonement
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The guard’s footsteps shuffled away from the horse stall-cum-jail cell, and Rhett’s mind was racing. His “sister” Mrs. Hamilton was here to see him. The woman he’d left alone in the midst of two armies. The woman whose dancing eyes haunted his dreams through some very long, dark nights. The woman who’d been foremost in his thoughts when he fled the newly reunified nation’s capital. The woman he was still madly in love with.
Why was she coming to him now? It was not that he didn’t want to see her, but aside from that one horrible night, she’d never sought him. She’d welcomed his company, clearly more than she was willing to admit, but always he had come to her. Now she was here, and his suspicions were aroused as much as his desire.
The feathers of her hat, wavering over the shoulder of the guard leading her, announced her arrival. As she approached, he took in her appearance. Certainly she was better dressed than he’d expected, in a most flattering deep green velvet with a jaunty hat, but the dress was too self-consciously imitative of the latest fashions, rather than being simply stylish. The neckline swooped to reveal padded and plumped décolletage, but what captured his eye was the collarbone that stood out in sharp relief above it.
“Scarlett! My darling little sister!” he greeted her and enveloped her in an ostentatious embrace. The guard discretely disappeared as Rhett took the opportunity to feel the slenderness of her frame despite its elaborate trappings. She’d always had a shockingly tiny waist, but it had been all the more alluring because of her other obvious, delicious curves. These had vanished, leaving her simply thin under her clothes. He was more intrigued than ever by her arrival.
“Rhett! I came just as soon as I heard you were here! How awful, you in a Yankee jail, and not even a real jail, a horse jail!” She batted her eyes and looked up at him, in full belle mode.
He smiled down at her, noting the strange glow in her eyes. It wasn’t so different from the look in her eyes that night he’d lead her out of Atlanta, a queer sort of desperation and hope. “How are things at Tara? You put on quite a show in your velvet.”
His jibe was lost on her, apparently, for she only intensified her smile and cloying sweetness that he knew was so far from her true persona. “Things are doing just wonderfully. Only I was so awfully bored I thought I might come into town to visit.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment, until he breached the distance between them to slowly trace her collarbone with his index finger. She shivered but met his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me how things really are, and why you’re really here,” he said, exerting a great deal of effort to keep his voice neutral. Even now, he wanted her. Perhaps more than ever before, for the look of desperation in her eyes, her obvious need for him in some way, any way.
Suddenly she seemed to collapse against him as she had that last horrible night he’d seen her, clutching the front of his shirt in one hand as she cried against his chest. It was so unexpected that all he could do was wrap his arms around her and ask, “What’s wrong, Scarlett?”
“Things at Tara are just awful, Rhett,” she said, taking a few heaving breaths to quell her tears. “Mother’s dead, Pa’s not himself, there’s no money and no food, and now the Yankees want another three hundred dollars in taxes.”
“And you’ve come to here to ask me for the money? Where did you find the money for this dress, then, if you can’t afford to feed yourself?” He didn’t mean to be harsh, he was merely curious. She’d come to put on quite a show, but it was her candor that touched him.
“They were Mother’s best parlor curtains.” She let out a tiny sob before continuing. “You’re the only person who has that kind of money. I don’t expect you to just give it to me, I only want a loan until we get the money for next year’s cotton.”
“What do you suggest as collateral?” He was as much amused as intrigued by her offer. Surely she must know he could refuse her nothing, would give her the money with no strings attached.
“I’ve got my mother’s garnet earbobs.” When he responded with a blank look, wondering how far he could push her, she continued “Or I can sign over the deed to Tara until I’ve repaid you.” He continued to look at her with a look of blank assessment. “Or myself. You once asked me….” She trailed off, having gained his attention more than he would allow himself to show.
“I did. You’d offer yourself to me for the money to save Tara?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Such an opportunity to have her, one he would never allow himself to take. Now he wanted her as more than a mere mistress.
She wouldn’t look at him, only nod tersely in response. More telling still, she edged away from him, as if not only ashamed, but now waiting for him to refuse her. The look on her face broke his heart.
“What if I said no?” Though his voice was barely a whisper, it sounded loud in the hush that had fallen.
That got her to look at him, tears beginning to run down her face once again. “Oh, Rhett, you can’t say no. I’ve got nowhere else to turn, and if we don’t get the money, my whole family will be turned out. You just have to loan me the money. Please.” She did start crying once more as she fell against him.
But this did not feel like the panicked plea of the frightened child he’d held that night on Pittypat Hamilton’s porch. Now he felt in his arms a hungry, fearful, cornered lioness trying to protect not herself but her family.
“I won’t loan you the money.” Much as it pained him, he must be honest with her and hope she would hear him out before fighting against him, but she began to pull away from him before he finished the sentence and he knew that hope was in vain.
“What?” She looked crushed.
“I won’t loan you the money. But I will give it to you with one condition.”
Her face was so easy to read, and he knew he had her when she looked up at him with a steely resolution. “Name it.”
“Marry me.”
She backed away from him until she thudded against the rough wooden door of the stall, rattling it. “You’re joking. It’s not funny, Rhett!”
“I’m being completely serious, my dear.” He’d never wanted anything in his life so badly as he wanted to feed her and protect her and take her to bed every night and make her so happy.
“But-but you always said…” she looked perplexed and wary. He realized that he had perhaps taken advantage of her trust to taunt her a few too many times.
“I once said too damn many things.” He crossed the few feet between them in a single step, taking her in his arms once more. Their lips met before she could wipe the astonished look off her face, but she recovered quickly enough to return his kiss. His low voice whispered across her ear, “Now I’m saying I’d like to take care of you. I’d like you to be my wife.”
With a shiver, she exhaled, “Yes.” Then she seemed to sober and look up at him for just a moment before asking, “Why?”
He shouldn’t have been surprised by her frank curiosity, but was startled by her blunt candor. Laughing, he asked, “Why do you care?”
“Well, you know that I’m marrying you for three hundred dollars. Shouldn’t I know just as well what you stand to gain from this?”
“Ah, ever the pragmatist, darling. I’ve wanted you for years, and now I can have you, for three hundred dollars, and I rather like the idea of taking care of you and making you happy. You can be so pretty when you’re happy. And I would hope you’re marrying me for something more than simply money.”
“I am fond of you, when you aren’t being a varmint. But it’s mostly the money.”
He laughed, seeing in her eyes what she couldn’t acknowledge, even to herself. Those few kisses, that little affection, had stoked a light that he hadn’t seen since before the siege of Atlanta. “Now go see my lawyer tomorrow. Mr. Cramer is due to visit later today, and I’ll tell him our happy news. He’ll advance you whatever money you need until I’m released.”
She nodded. “And when will that be? I don’t suppose with the two of us and times like they are we’d have to stay engaged terribly long before the wedding.”
He smirked, thinking of the field day the old peahens would have with this news. “Within the next few weeks, I imagine. I’ll send word out to Tara for you.”
It was well and truly astonishing when she flung her arms around him with surprising strength for her thin form. “Thank you so much, Rhett. You can’t imagine how much this means to me, truly.”
Kissing the crown of her head, he said, “I think I can. Now back to your Aunt Pitty’s, before I forget where we are and decide to take a down payment now.”
“Oh, you’re awful!” she said, pulling away and opening the door. Without another word, she left, the confident staccato of her footsteps echoing back along the plank flooring.
Before today, he thought he’d loved her. If that was love, Rhett Butler had just discovered a new emotion. Her courage and resolve and increased his feelings for her a hundredfold.
****
Haven
****
The bed was luxuriantly soft and comfortable, but he was more interested in the warm, soft body curled under the sheets. In their six months of marriage, he’d learned there was only one reason Scarlett slept curled into a ball rather than sprawling across the bed as was her normal habit.
When he’d taken her to bed on their wedding night, the thinness he’d felt at the jail was more strikingly confirmed. For the first time in his life, he’d been worried about hurting the woman with whom he was making love. In the morning, as his fingers traced over slender ribs, he worried what toll pregnancy would take on her now, for she was skinnier and more exhausted than anyone else at Tara. They would have to be careful, because he wanted her to have time to rest, relax, and enjoy marriage.
He’d told her his concerns, and she’d blushed a most delightful shade of pink in the early morning light, burying her face in the pillows until his whispers in her ears and teasing kisses had gotten the better of her temper. In a fit of embarrassed frustration, she’d told him she didn’t think she could have more children, for in the last horrible year, the only blessing had been her flux stopping.
After that, he’d calmed her, saying so much the better, but it had troubled him far more than he was willing to admit to her. He had heard of such things happening to those starving, and wondered just what other unseen tolls the hardships of the war had wrought upon her. Not for the first time, too, he wondered what might have been if he’d not left her that night on the McDonough Road. How different things might have been for both of them.
Rhett had acquiesced to her desire to initially settle at Tara, though he had no real wish to live there himself. She’d been surprisingly reluctant at first to accept his help to improve the situation there, as if it was shocking for a husband to hire help so his wife would not have to work in the fields, or buy enough food to feed and dress everyone.
Eventually, Scarlett seemed to realize how wonderful all of this was, and was not shy about expressing her happiness to him. She’d been free enough with kisses and small shows of affection, and for now this was enough. He knew that she wasn’t in love with him when she married him, for she’d freely admitted as much, but he could see her affection for him increasing as the months passed.
One night, after noticing her looking pained as she worked hunched over Tara’s books all day, he’d slid into bed and reached for her, wanting to knead away her tension. She’d been uncharacteristically curled up, facing away from him, and flinched farther away at his touch. With only slightly less embarrassment than their conversation the morning after their wedding, she’d told him that her flux had returned.
He’d said nothing, only slid his hands further down her back and began to knead her tense muscles, noting with pleasure that her curves were beginning to return as well. Under his hands, he could feel her relax into his touch, and eventually fall asleep. Over time, he observed that she never uttered one word of complaint, nor took to her bed as other women might, but he saw the subtle notes of pain in her face, and her nightmares were always worse at this time.
This night, when he slid into bed next to his wife he felt the bed shift as she slid ever so slightly closer to him. He obliged by settling close behind her and enclosing her in his arms. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” For all his efforts, and her willingness to share his bed, she was still unwilling to discuss matters she viewed as indecent.
He played along, for the moment. “You work too hard, Scarlett. You don’t have to anymore.”
She turned in his arms, and the sight of threatening tears sparkling in the faint moonlight astonished him. “I don’t know how to stop anymore. Since I came home, I’ve been working so hard, even when I’m tired and hurting, that I don’t know what will happen to me if I stop.”
It was as close as he’d ever come to hearing her admit any sort of pain. Without responding, he drew her closer, wrapping his arms around her to massage the taunt muscles of her back. When she rested her forehead against his chest and let out a sigh, he finally responded to her. “I thought that was why you married me. So you could stop worrying and working.”
“I don’t worry anymore.” She embraced him tightly and the feel of her slim, strong fingers on his shoulders stirred his desire. Then she spoke again, and quashed those thoughts. “You’ve been so wonderful to me, to everyone at Tara. But I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something else horrible to happen. Everything seems too good to be true, after before.”
“Didn’t you listen to fairy tales when you were a child? This is happily ever after. Only we’re a slightly tarnished knight and an impoverished princess, so this is what we get.”
She was quiet for a long time, and he was afraid he’d truly upset her with his glib remark. Then very quietly, she said, “When I was young and Ashley came home from Europe, I thought he looked like a knight out of a fairy tale, riding up with shining hair and a brilliant gray horse. But he was only a storybook knight if you lived as we used to. Now I think there’s more brilliance in what you’ve done for me.”
He kissed her softly on the lips as she snuggled closer to him. “Thank you, Scarlett. Neither of us are what we were taught to idealize. But we are both smart and stubborn enough to make it through the worst, alone. Together we can slay whatever dragons need slaughtering.”
She laughed then, something she did far to infrequently now. “I’m holding you to that promise.”
“I’m at your service, milady.” He smiled and kissed her again before they both drifted off to sleep.
****
End
****
Author: Ellie
Rating: PG
Summary: Rhett helps Scarlett flee Atlanta.
Author’s Note: Some of the dialogue is paraphrased from the novel, which isn’t mine. The story departs from there.
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Virgil in Hell
****
He turned the creaking, battered wagon onto Peachtree Street and wondered just what he was getting himself into. The last time he’d seen Scarlett, he’d offered to make her his mistress, and she’d ordered him away.
That had been over a month ago. He’d stayed, because he had nowhere else in particular to go, and to make sure she made it through the coming carnage. The plan was to keep an eye on her from a safe distance, fiddling and watching Rome burn. But somehow, he’d ended up involved. She may have rebuffed him, but he still wanted her, and wanted her badly enough to agree to assist in this madness.
As he pulled up to the Hamilton house, he saw Scarlett waiting on the porch, looking as if the only thing keeping her upright was the pillar she was leaning against. She called his name, barely discernable against the distant rumblings of war, as he climbed down from the wagon. He didn’t answer at first, simply tried to gauge her state of mind as he strode confidently up the walk.
Stumbling down the steps, she nearly tumbled into his arms, just keeping herself together as he stopped in front of her and spoke. “Fine weather we’re having. I hear you’re planning a trip?” He hoped his jesting tone would spark enough temper in her to color her pale face and give her the bravado to make it through whatever foolish endeavor she was planning.
“Don’t you dare joke with me right now, or I’ll never speak to you again!” Her voice trembled as she spoke, obviously not rising to bait that would normally be enough to send her railing.
“You’re not afraid?” He looked at her with feigned astonishment, and she glowered at him.
“Of course I am! If you had any sense, you would be, too! But we don’t have time for this now. We’ve got to get out of here.”
His mind flashed through images of the two of them, dancing in Paris, dining in the Bahamas, sitting idly in the Mexican sun. He’d take her anywhere she wanted to go. “At your service, madam. But where were you planning on going? The Yankees have the town surrounded, except for the McDonough Road our army is using to evacuate. And if we follow that road, the Army will take the horse, which while not much of an animal, was considerably difficult to procure. Just where were you planning on heading?”
She was trembling as he spoke, and looked close to fainting at his mention of the McDonough Road. “I’m going home.”
“Home? To Tara?”
“Yes, to Tara. Oh, Rhett, we must hurry!” She looked frantic.
For a moment he could only stare at her and wonder whether it was blind foolishness or naïveté that inspired such a request. “Tara? God Almighty, Scarlett, you can’t go to Tara! There’s been fighting around Jonesboro all day, the Yankee army will be swarming all over the County by now. You can’t go through the middle of the army!”
“I will! I will go home!” Tears were streaming down her face, and her voice broke to a scream as she pounded her fists against his chest. “You can’t stop me, I will go home!”
He couldn’t control the impulse to take her in his arms, wrapping them tenderly around her slender, shaking form. At that moment, the world around them was far from his mind; his only thought was to protect her. Almost as soon as the idea occurred to him, he knew he was lost. It was more than mere desire for her body that had him holding here on the steps of her Aunt Pitty’s porch, wanting to comfort and shelter her as the world fell down around them. He stroked her hair and murmured reassuring nothings, and, as he kissed the crown of her head, he admitted to himself that he was dangerously in love with her.
“Shh, don’t cry. You will go home, my brave girl.” She felt so warm and pliant in his arms, as if she were perfectly willing to allow him to hold her forever. Given half a chance, he would. The very desire frightened him more than the madness of the world around them.
He pulled away from the embrace, trying to distance himself from his own emotions. Preferring not to think of them for now, he pulled out his handkerchief and allowed her to dry her eyes and blow her nose. Then he set her in motion once more, considerably more composed, helping organize and load the rest of her family into the pitiful excuse for a wagon.
The idea of transporting Melanie all the way to Tara in that wagon was not an appealing one, but he had no choice but to carry her as gently as possible down the stairs and hope that consciousness would not be with her for long. Her journey down the stairs would be the easiest part of this trip.
As he turned the wagon west, an explosion shook the air around them, and Scarlett jumped on the hard wagon seat, landing several inches closer to him than she’d previously been sitting.
“That must be the ammunition trains,” he said matter-of-factly as fire licked the sky over distant rooftops. “Why they didn’t get them out this morning when they had the chance I’ll never know.”
“Must…must we go through that fire?” Her voice did not shake, but he could hear the effort it took for her to keep it from doing so.
“Not if we move quickly.” He felt guilty forcing the poor horse into a steady trot, but knew he would feel far worse if anything were to befall the people he’d now taken responsibility for.
Under his guidance, and with steady urging from his makeshift whip, the horse carried them ever closer to the flames. Scarlett moved closer to him the nearer the flames drew, going so far as to take her arm in his hand as she sat shivering on the seat next to him. The urge to comfort and reassure her was nearly overwhelming, but he only looked at her, hoping his outward confidence in the face of this inferno would be enough. He would be their Virgil, and must content himself with that role.
He handed her a pistol, and he had to smirk as she tucked it next to her dead husband’s. Had she ever really been married? He’d like to show her what marriage truly could be, and for a moment, sitting still as a line of soldiers passed in flaming silhouette, he indulged the fantasy of spiriting her away from this, of making her his wife. Then he was angry, at himself for such daydreams and at the entire maddened world that caused them.
“Take a good look, my dear. One day you’ll want to tell your grandchildren how your watched the last of the Glorious Cause retreating.” Bitterness spiked his tone, harsher than he intended the sentiment, but it released some of his frustration.
Scarlett only looked at him sourly, as if she’d like to fling him into the fires herself. Yet her hand remained tight on his arm as she watched the retreating soldiers pass, the fires giving her face another worldly glow only heightened by her anger at him. Never had she looked so beautiful to him, and never was he more certain that he had to retreat from her before she destroyed him, just as surely as the Army was retreating before Sherman’s forces.
With this realization, he galvanized himself and brought the whip down on the horse once more, sending the wagon lurching forward toward the flames. He focused all his attention on what must be done, and was almost unaware of the raging fires or straggling citizens as he guided them through the streets of Atlanta. Only the hot, clammy hand clenched around his bicep seared into his consciousness with more intensity than the heat of the burning city. He hated himself for it, hated her for the love she stirred in him.
When she tried to thank him as the wagon rattled through the outskirts of town, he could not keep his eyes from betraying him as he looked at her. She shrank away from him, afraid of what she saw in his face even if she didn’t understand it. He let out a sigh of frustration and disappointment that was lost in the noisy night.
It felt like hours before they were alone on the dark road to Rough and Ready, the flame-tinged sky fading behind them. He stopped the horse for a rest, and gathered himself for the confrontation he knew was coming. Scarlett urged him on, and for the first time since they’d left Aunt Pitty’s, he spared her a long, assessing look. She was no longer shivering with fear or adrenaline, now looking only worried and slightly lost.
“Are you still planning on doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Getting through to Tara. Both our cavalry and the Yankee Army are between you and Tara.”
“Oh, yes, please, let’s just hurry. I know a way, we don’t have to take the main roads if only we can get close enough to Rough and Ready.” There was something so childlike about her determination that nearly broke through his resolve.
“You might make it then. If you don’t run into the Yankees. Or if you don’t run into Steve Lee’s cavalry wanting your horse.”
“If I…?”
“Yes, if you.” He tried to pretend that his voice hadn’t nearly cracked on that. That it wasn’t nearly killing him to have to leave her. But he couldn’t stay with her.
“Rhett, you…You’re not going to take us?”
“No my dear, I’m leaving you at this juncture.”
She looked panicked, as if unsure whether to laugh or cry or slap him. Echoes of the night’s earlier flames danced in her eyes as she stared at him like a trapped fox.
He nearly laughed, at himself, at her, at the whole mixed up world. “I’m going to join the Army, dear Scarlett.”
“Oh, stop your joking and let’s go home.”
“Dare you doubt my devotion to our most Glorious Cause?” He couldn’t help but laugh at it all now. The only thing he could find to escape from her was to join a loosing Cause.
She looked truly frightened now, with tears once again threatening to spill down her cheeks. He felt a few of them fall, dropping down on his wrist as he guided her down from the wagon and kissed her hand.
“Selfish to the end. Think of the service I’ll be doing by joining our boys at the eleventh hour.”
“Oh,” she cried, “why are you doing this? Leaving us here!”
He laughed. “Perhaps it’s sentimentality. Perhaps it’s shame.” The sentimentality of loving someone he knew was not capable of reciprocating his feelings. The shame of being unable to face those feelings. He knew he could never explain to her, and so couched it all in deepest sarcasm and gambled on her confusion.
“Ashamed? You should be, leaving us here, alone and helpless!” she sputtered.
“Scarlett, you’re the least helpless person I know! God help the Yankes should they get you.”
He pulled her away from the carriage and into the darkness. The world around them was silent, stillness enveloping them as he held her. “I don’t expect you to understand. Hell, I hardly understand myself. But I want you to know before I go, in spite of what I said last month, that I do love you Scarlett.” His hands caressed her bare arms, sliding up to knead her tense shoulders. “I love you because we’re so alike. Neither of us would care if the whole world burned around us, so long as we were safe and comfortable.”
She allowed him to pull her close, and he allowed himself the brief indulgence that they were alone in the world, free to do as they wished. As her body came in contact with his, he could feel her stirring unconsciously, drawing closer to him. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider my offer? You could send a soldier off with beautiful memories.” If she’d only agree, if only she’d ask him to stay for her not them, if she’d only admit that she felt something too, he knew he would not leave, could not leave her. It would take so little.
He kissed her, giving free rein to the passion he’d always kept so tightly in check around her. The way she fell loose in his arms, but wrapped her own around his shoulders, he knew she’d never been kissed his way before. His lips trailed down her neck, touching the hammering pulse at her throat, and knew she was as affected as he.
Then Wade’s frightened voice broke the silence of their world, and she drew away from him. For a second she seemed dazed, then she slapped him with surprising force.
“They were all right! You aren’t a gentleman!”
Touching a palm to his cheek, he could only laugh. “My dear, how inadequate.” Had he really expected her to profess her love for him? Whatever his heart had wished, his intellect had known better, had known he was less likely to be wounded in by war than by her careless sentiment. “Goodbye, Scarlett.”
He turned and walked away, refusing to look back, knowing the darkness of night would blot her from his view and hide the tear he allowed to escape down his cheek. But just over the hill he settled onto an uprooted tree and waited. After several minutes, the shuffle of hooves and creak of wood announced the progress of the wagon towards Tara.
“God bless you, Scarlett. May we both come through the slaughter to see a better end than this,” he said, rising. Brushing the dust from his linen pants, he walked away from the woman he loved.
****
Purgatory
****
He had visited this region as a younger man, and remembered it as the scene of pastoral idylls, of hunting and picnics and rolling verdant fields. Now he sat against a crooked fencepost and surveyed the countryside as he ate a stale biscuit. What was once presumably a cow pasture was now only half-fenced, with many boards missing and broken, and what would have once been lush acres was now only a dusty, debris and weed littered field.
The first hints of warm weather taunted him as the breeze blew away crumbling bits of biscuit. With a weary sigh and a bit of pain in his knees, Rhett stood and for the first time regretted the loss of his fine linen suit. It had been most inappropriate to wear off to war, and he’d soon abandoned it for more practical attire. Had he planned ahead, he would not have simply grabbed money and run from Atlanta; he would have taken the time to change clothes as well.
Not that he regretted his choice in footwear. While most of the Confederate army had been lacking shoes when he met up with them, he was afraid that the fine French leather of his shoes would soon put him in company with them. But they had proved sturdier than they appeared, so while looking much the worse for mud and miles, he had soles between his feet and the dusty road.
If only he knew which road to follow. Eventually, he knew he would have to return to London to lay claim to the wealth he’d deposited in the banks there. The same quixotic desire that sent him off to war left him desiring to return to Charleston, to see his family and make sure they were taken care of, whether his father wished to see him or not. Strongly suppressed was a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him to go profit from the inevitable rebuilding of Atlanta. The sensible thing, of course, would be for him to head north, away from the ruins of the Confederacy and towards the friends and politicians he knew there.
Picking up the frayed, dingy gray sack carrying a few essential possessions, Rhett surveyed the available routes, then looked heavenward to gauge the position of the sun. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled a shining, ticking watch out from the breast pocket of his jacket, now with three fewer buttons than when he’d acquired it seven months ago. He carefully tucked the watch away again, tracing his grandfather’s initials with a dirty thumb as it slipped through his fingers.
This was not the first time he’d walked into an uncertain future with only what he carried. Even given the ravaged state of the nation, his journey now would be less difficult than his progress after being ousted from Charleston as a young man. Then, with no money, family, or friends to fall back on, he’d been given a horse and sent out of town, to make of himself what he would.
His father had wanted to be rid of the horse nearly as much as he’d wanted to be rid of Rhett, but boy and beast suited one another well in their role as outsiders. Rhett won enough money racing the horse to buy a train ticket west, and sold the horse for enough profit to provide some financing for whatever he chose to do whenever he decided to step off the train.
He’d known how to play cards, as all young men did. But on that train ride west, he’d learned how to be a gambler. The small savings he’d put aside had slowly grown. By the time the train reached the end of the line in California, he’d amassed enough money that he felt safe trying his hand at prospecting.
The small fortune he’d made then had mostly been reinvested, but some portion of it was still locked away in a British bank vault. One day, if he lived to old age, he wanted to be able to pull out a piece of the gold that had made him. Mostly, though, it had simply served to make him more gold. The rough and tumble life of a prospector had been fun for a few years, but he’d grown restless and bored, and realized that a small fortune could be transformed into a much larger one with a little savvy.
As he walked through ravaged Virginia, all Rhett had was savvy. A few coins still clinked in his pocket and deep in his bag, enough to buy him food during his travel, unless the opportunity presented itself to chance it into something larger.
Chance, he knew, worked in mysterious ways. As dusk fell, he thought of the risk he’d taken in bringing Scarlett out of Atlanta. He’d been reasonably certain of their physical safety, but had not been prepared for the emotional factors such an endeavor would encounter. Part of him still wondered what might have happened if he hadn’t left her there, if he had simply let the horse breathe before driving her on home. Did her home still stand? Would he have been welcome in it? He didn’t know if he could have stayed under the same roof with her and remember his manners. There had been something so primal that night, something that had appealed to his deeper nature and made him realize that it was no mere infatuation he felt for this young lady, who often acted so much the child.
He’d gone to war to forget her. But she’d haunted him these months, her eyes glowing in his dreams as they had that night in Atlanta’s flames. Rhett Butler never forgot anything., least of all Scarlett O’Hara.
Not for the first time in these many months, he wondered how she was faring as he made his way towards Washington.
****
Atonement
****
The guard’s footsteps shuffled away from the horse stall-cum-jail cell, and Rhett’s mind was racing. His “sister” Mrs. Hamilton was here to see him. The woman he’d left alone in the midst of two armies. The woman whose dancing eyes haunted his dreams through some very long, dark nights. The woman who’d been foremost in his thoughts when he fled the newly reunified nation’s capital. The woman he was still madly in love with.
Why was she coming to him now? It was not that he didn’t want to see her, but aside from that one horrible night, she’d never sought him. She’d welcomed his company, clearly more than she was willing to admit, but always he had come to her. Now she was here, and his suspicions were aroused as much as his desire.
The feathers of her hat, wavering over the shoulder of the guard leading her, announced her arrival. As she approached, he took in her appearance. Certainly she was better dressed than he’d expected, in a most flattering deep green velvet with a jaunty hat, but the dress was too self-consciously imitative of the latest fashions, rather than being simply stylish. The neckline swooped to reveal padded and plumped décolletage, but what captured his eye was the collarbone that stood out in sharp relief above it.
“Scarlett! My darling little sister!” he greeted her and enveloped her in an ostentatious embrace. The guard discretely disappeared as Rhett took the opportunity to feel the slenderness of her frame despite its elaborate trappings. She’d always had a shockingly tiny waist, but it had been all the more alluring because of her other obvious, delicious curves. These had vanished, leaving her simply thin under her clothes. He was more intrigued than ever by her arrival.
“Rhett! I came just as soon as I heard you were here! How awful, you in a Yankee jail, and not even a real jail, a horse jail!” She batted her eyes and looked up at him, in full belle mode.
He smiled down at her, noting the strange glow in her eyes. It wasn’t so different from the look in her eyes that night he’d lead her out of Atlanta, a queer sort of desperation and hope. “How are things at Tara? You put on quite a show in your velvet.”
His jibe was lost on her, apparently, for she only intensified her smile and cloying sweetness that he knew was so far from her true persona. “Things are doing just wonderfully. Only I was so awfully bored I thought I might come into town to visit.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment, until he breached the distance between them to slowly trace her collarbone with his index finger. She shivered but met his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me how things really are, and why you’re really here,” he said, exerting a great deal of effort to keep his voice neutral. Even now, he wanted her. Perhaps more than ever before, for the look of desperation in her eyes, her obvious need for him in some way, any way.
Suddenly she seemed to collapse against him as she had that last horrible night he’d seen her, clutching the front of his shirt in one hand as she cried against his chest. It was so unexpected that all he could do was wrap his arms around her and ask, “What’s wrong, Scarlett?”
“Things at Tara are just awful, Rhett,” she said, taking a few heaving breaths to quell her tears. “Mother’s dead, Pa’s not himself, there’s no money and no food, and now the Yankees want another three hundred dollars in taxes.”
“And you’ve come to here to ask me for the money? Where did you find the money for this dress, then, if you can’t afford to feed yourself?” He didn’t mean to be harsh, he was merely curious. She’d come to put on quite a show, but it was her candor that touched him.
“They were Mother’s best parlor curtains.” She let out a tiny sob before continuing. “You’re the only person who has that kind of money. I don’t expect you to just give it to me, I only want a loan until we get the money for next year’s cotton.”
“What do you suggest as collateral?” He was as much amused as intrigued by her offer. Surely she must know he could refuse her nothing, would give her the money with no strings attached.
“I’ve got my mother’s garnet earbobs.” When he responded with a blank look, wondering how far he could push her, she continued “Or I can sign over the deed to Tara until I’ve repaid you.” He continued to look at her with a look of blank assessment. “Or myself. You once asked me….” She trailed off, having gained his attention more than he would allow himself to show.
“I did. You’d offer yourself to me for the money to save Tara?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Such an opportunity to have her, one he would never allow himself to take. Now he wanted her as more than a mere mistress.
She wouldn’t look at him, only nod tersely in response. More telling still, she edged away from him, as if not only ashamed, but now waiting for him to refuse her. The look on her face broke his heart.
“What if I said no?” Though his voice was barely a whisper, it sounded loud in the hush that had fallen.
That got her to look at him, tears beginning to run down her face once again. “Oh, Rhett, you can’t say no. I’ve got nowhere else to turn, and if we don’t get the money, my whole family will be turned out. You just have to loan me the money. Please.” She did start crying once more as she fell against him.
But this did not feel like the panicked plea of the frightened child he’d held that night on Pittypat Hamilton’s porch. Now he felt in his arms a hungry, fearful, cornered lioness trying to protect not herself but her family.
“I won’t loan you the money.” Much as it pained him, he must be honest with her and hope she would hear him out before fighting against him, but she began to pull away from him before he finished the sentence and he knew that hope was in vain.
“What?” She looked crushed.
“I won’t loan you the money. But I will give it to you with one condition.”
Her face was so easy to read, and he knew he had her when she looked up at him with a steely resolution. “Name it.”
“Marry me.”
She backed away from him until she thudded against the rough wooden door of the stall, rattling it. “You’re joking. It’s not funny, Rhett!”
“I’m being completely serious, my dear.” He’d never wanted anything in his life so badly as he wanted to feed her and protect her and take her to bed every night and make her so happy.
“But-but you always said…” she looked perplexed and wary. He realized that he had perhaps taken advantage of her trust to taunt her a few too many times.
“I once said too damn many things.” He crossed the few feet between them in a single step, taking her in his arms once more. Their lips met before she could wipe the astonished look off her face, but she recovered quickly enough to return his kiss. His low voice whispered across her ear, “Now I’m saying I’d like to take care of you. I’d like you to be my wife.”
With a shiver, she exhaled, “Yes.” Then she seemed to sober and look up at him for just a moment before asking, “Why?”
He shouldn’t have been surprised by her frank curiosity, but was startled by her blunt candor. Laughing, he asked, “Why do you care?”
“Well, you know that I’m marrying you for three hundred dollars. Shouldn’t I know just as well what you stand to gain from this?”
“Ah, ever the pragmatist, darling. I’ve wanted you for years, and now I can have you, for three hundred dollars, and I rather like the idea of taking care of you and making you happy. You can be so pretty when you’re happy. And I would hope you’re marrying me for something more than simply money.”
“I am fond of you, when you aren’t being a varmint. But it’s mostly the money.”
He laughed, seeing in her eyes what she couldn’t acknowledge, even to herself. Those few kisses, that little affection, had stoked a light that he hadn’t seen since before the siege of Atlanta. “Now go see my lawyer tomorrow. Mr. Cramer is due to visit later today, and I’ll tell him our happy news. He’ll advance you whatever money you need until I’m released.”
She nodded. “And when will that be? I don’t suppose with the two of us and times like they are we’d have to stay engaged terribly long before the wedding.”
He smirked, thinking of the field day the old peahens would have with this news. “Within the next few weeks, I imagine. I’ll send word out to Tara for you.”
It was well and truly astonishing when she flung her arms around him with surprising strength for her thin form. “Thank you so much, Rhett. You can’t imagine how much this means to me, truly.”
Kissing the crown of her head, he said, “I think I can. Now back to your Aunt Pitty’s, before I forget where we are and decide to take a down payment now.”
“Oh, you’re awful!” she said, pulling away and opening the door. Without another word, she left, the confident staccato of her footsteps echoing back along the plank flooring.
Before today, he thought he’d loved her. If that was love, Rhett Butler had just discovered a new emotion. Her courage and resolve and increased his feelings for her a hundredfold.
****
Haven
****
The bed was luxuriantly soft and comfortable, but he was more interested in the warm, soft body curled under the sheets. In their six months of marriage, he’d learned there was only one reason Scarlett slept curled into a ball rather than sprawling across the bed as was her normal habit.
When he’d taken her to bed on their wedding night, the thinness he’d felt at the jail was more strikingly confirmed. For the first time in his life, he’d been worried about hurting the woman with whom he was making love. In the morning, as his fingers traced over slender ribs, he worried what toll pregnancy would take on her now, for she was skinnier and more exhausted than anyone else at Tara. They would have to be careful, because he wanted her to have time to rest, relax, and enjoy marriage.
He’d told her his concerns, and she’d blushed a most delightful shade of pink in the early morning light, burying her face in the pillows until his whispers in her ears and teasing kisses had gotten the better of her temper. In a fit of embarrassed frustration, she’d told him she didn’t think she could have more children, for in the last horrible year, the only blessing had been her flux stopping.
After that, he’d calmed her, saying so much the better, but it had troubled him far more than he was willing to admit to her. He had heard of such things happening to those starving, and wondered just what other unseen tolls the hardships of the war had wrought upon her. Not for the first time, too, he wondered what might have been if he’d not left her that night on the McDonough Road. How different things might have been for both of them.
Rhett had acquiesced to her desire to initially settle at Tara, though he had no real wish to live there himself. She’d been surprisingly reluctant at first to accept his help to improve the situation there, as if it was shocking for a husband to hire help so his wife would not have to work in the fields, or buy enough food to feed and dress everyone.
Eventually, Scarlett seemed to realize how wonderful all of this was, and was not shy about expressing her happiness to him. She’d been free enough with kisses and small shows of affection, and for now this was enough. He knew that she wasn’t in love with him when she married him, for she’d freely admitted as much, but he could see her affection for him increasing as the months passed.
One night, after noticing her looking pained as she worked hunched over Tara’s books all day, he’d slid into bed and reached for her, wanting to knead away her tension. She’d been uncharacteristically curled up, facing away from him, and flinched farther away at his touch. With only slightly less embarrassment than their conversation the morning after their wedding, she’d told him that her flux had returned.
He’d said nothing, only slid his hands further down her back and began to knead her tense muscles, noting with pleasure that her curves were beginning to return as well. Under his hands, he could feel her relax into his touch, and eventually fall asleep. Over time, he observed that she never uttered one word of complaint, nor took to her bed as other women might, but he saw the subtle notes of pain in her face, and her nightmares were always worse at this time.
This night, when he slid into bed next to his wife he felt the bed shift as she slid ever so slightly closer to him. He obliged by settling close behind her and enclosing her in his arms. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” For all his efforts, and her willingness to share his bed, she was still unwilling to discuss matters she viewed as indecent.
He played along, for the moment. “You work too hard, Scarlett. You don’t have to anymore.”
She turned in his arms, and the sight of threatening tears sparkling in the faint moonlight astonished him. “I don’t know how to stop anymore. Since I came home, I’ve been working so hard, even when I’m tired and hurting, that I don’t know what will happen to me if I stop.”
It was as close as he’d ever come to hearing her admit any sort of pain. Without responding, he drew her closer, wrapping his arms around her to massage the taunt muscles of her back. When she rested her forehead against his chest and let out a sigh, he finally responded to her. “I thought that was why you married me. So you could stop worrying and working.”
“I don’t worry anymore.” She embraced him tightly and the feel of her slim, strong fingers on his shoulders stirred his desire. Then she spoke again, and quashed those thoughts. “You’ve been so wonderful to me, to everyone at Tara. But I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something else horrible to happen. Everything seems too good to be true, after before.”
“Didn’t you listen to fairy tales when you were a child? This is happily ever after. Only we’re a slightly tarnished knight and an impoverished princess, so this is what we get.”
She was quiet for a long time, and he was afraid he’d truly upset her with his glib remark. Then very quietly, she said, “When I was young and Ashley came home from Europe, I thought he looked like a knight out of a fairy tale, riding up with shining hair and a brilliant gray horse. But he was only a storybook knight if you lived as we used to. Now I think there’s more brilliance in what you’ve done for me.”
He kissed her softly on the lips as she snuggled closer to him. “Thank you, Scarlett. Neither of us are what we were taught to idealize. But we are both smart and stubborn enough to make it through the worst, alone. Together we can slay whatever dragons need slaughtering.”
She laughed then, something she did far to infrequently now. “I’m holding you to that promise.”
“I’m at your service, milady.” He smiled and kissed her again before they both drifted off to sleep.
****
End
****