Ever since the two horses came into their possession, Mammy had been nagging Scarlett day and night to check in on their most immediate neighbors- the Fontaines, the Tarletons, the Calverts- those who had most frequented the halls of Tara, and who were now lost to the deadly isolation that enveloped the whole of the countryside.

Each time, Scarlett gave Mammy the excuse that her foot was too blistered to stand even a slipper, let alone control a horse. And although this was true, it was not the real reason Scarlett hesitated to ride out. Her mind was plagued with the images of scarecrow-like black chimneys standing guard over charred foundations. Was it not better, a part of her mind questioned, to leave the state of Mimosa and its inhabitants unknown, rather than to ride out and find the house in rubble, and the Fontaines dead and gone?

But no, she told herself, putting away this cowardly thought; she needed to find out what had become of her neighbors. At least then she could know whether Tara was a lone island of life, or whether help was nearby should another catastrophe strike. Though isolated, she did not feel lonely, except in those moments when Rhett and Pork were out hunting, when Melly and the girls had fallen into fitful sleep and a somnolence fell over the house. Then she felt like a macabre version of Eve, the sole woman in a red garden of clay and pines that was far from paradise.

When she could no longer put off meeting her neighbors and set out towards the Fontaines', visions of Mimosa's ruins danced frighteningly in her mind. Although the Fontaines were not the closest of her neighbors, she hoped Dr. Fontaine might be at home. Melanie wasn't getting over her baby as she should be, and her thin whiteness frightened Scarlett, who had never suffered illness in her life.

To her surprise and pleasure, she saw the faded yellow stucco house standing amidst the Mimosa trees, looking as it had always looked. Warm happiness, happiness that almost brought tears, flooded through her when she saw the Fontaine women running to welcome her with cries of joy.

But when the first exclamations of affectionate greeting had passed and they all trooped into the dining room to sit down, Scarlett felt a chill. Minimosa was off the main road so the Yankees hadn't gotten to it, and while their provisions and stock were still intact, the same strange silence hung over Mimosa as hung over the whole countryside. All their slaves but four had run away, frightened by the approach of the Yankees. Alone in the big house were Grandma Fontaine, her daughter in law who would always be known as Young Miss, and Sally, who had barely turned twenty. Although they were far away from neighbors and unprotected, if they were afraid it did not show on their faces. Probably, thought Scarlett, because Sally and Young Miss were too afraid of old Grandma to dare voice any qualms. Scarlett herself was afraid of the old lady, for she had sharp eyes and a sharper tongue and Scarlett had felt them both before.

Though unrelated by blood and far apart in age, the three women were linked by a common bitterness. Though they did not sulk or complain, it leaked from their smiles and their words of welcome. Their slaves were gone, their money was worthless, and Sally and Young Miss's husbands had both died in the past year. Alex and Tony were somewhere in Virginia and no one knew whether they were alive or dead. Old Dr. Fontaine was with Wheeler's calvary, Grandma told her, staunchly proud of her old fool.

"Have you all had any news of what's been happening in Atlanta?" asked Scarlett when they were comfortably settled. "We're completely buried at Tara."

"Law, child, we know about the same as you," said Old Miss, taking charge of the conversation, as was her habit. "All we know is that Sherman got the town."

"So he did get it. Where's the army now?"

"And how would three lone women sitting out here in the country know, when we haven't seen a letter or newspaper in weeks?" Ole Miss began irritably. "Last we heard, the Yankees were just squatting in Atlanta resting up their men and their horses. You know as much about Wheeler's Calvary and the Georgia militia as we do."

"And to think that you were at Tara all this time!" Young Miss broke in. "How I blame myself for not riding over to see! But there's been so much to do here, and after all, we thought the Yankees had burned Tara like they did Twelve Oakes and the MacIntosh house and that your folks had gone to Macon."

"Well how were we to know otherwise?" Grandma Fontaine interrupted. "When some of your slaves came popeyed screaming that the Yankees were camped all over Tara, and that they were going to burn it down. How come they didn't burn it, Scarlett?"

Here Scarlett hesitated. She knew that the very next question would be "how are all your folks?" and there were two things she dreaded to bring up. First, she couldn't tell them about Ellen. She knew that if she spoke of Ellen's death in the presence of these women, she would burst into tears and cry until she was sick. She hadn't let herself really cry for Ellen since she had lain prostrate on the dirt of Twelve Oakes, and if she let down the floodgates, she knew all her closely-guarded courage would abandon her.

Once Grandma Fontaine had heard of Ellen, she would ask how Scarlett had gotten to Tara at all, and there would come in Rhett. And though the South's wealth and ease might have been stolen by the Yankees, Scarlett knew that the rules of social conduct remained tight as ever. Should word ever come out that Rhett had been staying for weeks with her and the girls, chaperoned only by four servants and an old man who had been abandoned by his senses, Scarlett and her entire family would be ruined. Of course, quartering nameless soldiers overnight was an accepted practice, but a man with Rhett's reputation! This scandal was larger than the one involving him and the girl in Charleston, Scarlett realized with fear. It would be enough to set tongues wagging for generations after this damned war ended.

"Well, speak up Miss," said Grandma, giving her a sharp look. "Or don't you know why Tara's still standing?"

"Well, you see, I didn't get home till the day after the battle," she answered hastily. "The Yankees were all gone then. Pa—Pa told me that-that he got them not to burn the house because Suellen and Carreen were so ill with typhoid they couldn't be moved."

Grandma snorted and said, rather regretfully, that was the first time she ever heard of a Yankee doing something decent. To Scarlett's immense relief, she next asked if they had started picking their cotton over at Tara yet and, when she heard they had not, wore Scarlett out for not laboring herself in the cotton plants. Scarlett bore the scolding with good fortitude, not even offended by Grandma's insinuation that she ought to work the land like a field hand. She hoped that would be the end of it, but then she saw the question she dreaded form on the old woman's lips. She cast about desperately for another topic of conversation.

"I-I wonder if you could lend us something to eat? The Yankees cleaned us out like a swarm of locusts. But, if you are on short rations, just tell me so plainly and-"

"Send over Pork with a wagon and you shall have half of what we've got, rice, meal, ham, some chickens," said Old Miss, giving Scarlett a sudden keen look.

"Oh, that's too much! Really, I-"

"Not a word! I won't hear it. What are neighbors for?"

"You are so kind that I can't- But I have to be going now. The folks at home will be worrying about me."

Grandma rose abruptly and took Scarlett by the arm.

"You two stay here," she commanded, pushing Scarlett toward the back porch. "I have a private word for this child. Help me down the steps, Scarlett."

Young Miss and Sally said goodbye reluctantly and went back to their sewing, leaving Scarlett and Grandma Fontaine standing together on the back porch.

"Now," said Grandma Fontaine, peering into her face, "What's wrong at Tara? What are you holding back?"

Scarlett looked into the keen old eyes and knew she could speak without crying. No one could cry in Grandma Fontaine's place without her express permission. So she told the old lady everything- or, well, nearly everything. She edited the story so that Rhett had left them on the road to Tara, so that it sounded as if she had been managing the burden alone. Scarlett narrated this part haltingly, but soon found words of power and horror as the images of that nightmarish day came back to her- Ellen dead, her father's mind unhinged.

"I thought that if I could just get home to Mother, she could manage everything and I could put down the weary load. After the seige I thought the worst had already happened to me. When I got home, then I found out just what the worst really was."

Yet as Scarlett spoke these last words she wondered if they were really true. Suppose Rhett had left them at the Rough and Ready? She would have been forced to carry Melanie and her baby home alone, fend for and feed eight family members with only her two pale hands.

It did not occur to Scarlett that the constant banter with Rhett, his constant jibes and various moods, had distracted her from her traumatic circumstances. Though the shrewd practicality she had been born with had only grown under the present strain, it had not hardened into callous coolness Unconsciously, perhaps, she was aware of her growing comraderie with the man she had once considered a blackguard. She even found it in her, standing with Grandma Fontaine, to thank God for providing them with Rhett. As she stood there in the sun with Grandma Fontaine, unbidden, the question arose in her mind that she had dismissed long ago in Atlanta.

"Can I be in love with him?" Scarlett asked herself. Field after field of dying cotton plant flew past her under the hot sun. She found that she could not dismiss the question as easily as before.

About an hour after Scarlett had ridden off towards the Fontaines, Mammy had finally given him permission to leave his bed.

"Effen if Ah tole you it waz too soon ter be tirin' yo'sef out gaddin about," she grumbled, a knowing twinkle in her keen old eyes, "Ah 'spect you be mekin a break fo' it terday anyhow. An' keepen you in bed ain' stoppin' you from Miz Scarlett none."

Rhett threw his head back and laughed.

"Mammy, your reserves of talent are simply wasted here. Why, you ought to have been a spy for the Confederacy! Nothing in this house, not even the faintest whisper, gets by you, does it?"

Mammy snorted and then scolded loudly when she heard him taking the stairs two at a time.

"Wut a chile dat man is on de inside," she grumbled to herself, gathering the soiled bedsheets. "Ah doan believe anyone sespect it neither."

It was a beautiful day outside, the red fields dappled with sunlight and the blue sky dotted here and there with puffy clouds. Though it was October, the birds chirped and sang in the trees, paying no attention to the scraggly cotton plants or weeds that were rapidly encroaching. Suellen and Careen were sleeping upstairs. Melanie rocked peacefully in a patch of sunlight, white shawl wrapped around her thin shoulders. She held the sleeping Beau in her arms and Wade sat on the porch floor, telling her a story. As a familiar figure appeared in the doorway, the boy's face lit up and he shouted out.

"Uncle Rhett! Uncle Rhett!"

"Hello, Soldier!" said Rhett, picking him up and swinging him around, eliciting a shriek of laughter from the boy. Melanie smiled warmly at the both of them. Who would have thought, she marvelled to herself, that Captain Butler, the dangerous blockader, could present such a picture?

"Wade," Melanie called, interruping their fun, "Will you be a good boy, and tell Mammy it's time for your bath?" Wade obediently toddled off, and Rhett gave Melanie a significant look. No doubt he recognized, thought Melanie, that she was sending the child away so she could talk to him alone.

"What's bothering you, Mrs. Wilkes?" Rhett asked, an uncharacteristic look of concern on his usually bland face.

Melly hesitated. She didn't quite know how to get to the topic she wanted to discuss, without seeming too forward. Timidly, she began,"Captain Butler, you're- you're absolutely sure you're going to enlist?"

Rhett laughed. "Mrs. Wilkes, I believe I'm just as eager as those boys were at the beginning of the war, when they all thought one battle would end the war before they could fight." Something glimmered deep in his black eyes and he spoke quietly. "But this time, we really are close to the end. Any fool can see that." Melly felt a tug in her heart as she understood the meaning of his words. The face of her Ashley came to her as he had looked the last time she had seen him- lined with wrinkles, weary. He had known the end was coming too, and not the end that they had hoped for. How strange, she thought, looking at the man beside him, that Captain Butler and her husband should think so much alike in this matter.

"Have you told Scarlett yet of your plans?" she asked, trying to push the gnawing fears for her husband out of her mind, and discuss what she had meant to.

"Mrs. Wilkes, if I had told Scarlett already, you would have known from the yelling." Rhett smiled at her, eyes suddenly twinkling. "I expect she'll take it just as well as Washington took Benedict Arnold's betrayal."

Melanie tsk'ed shook her head. "Don't you worry about that at all, Captain Butler. Why, Scarlett didn't say a word when dear Charlie enlisted, even though she loved him so and they had been married only two months." Even at this late date, her lip quivered when thinking of her brother. Rhett watched closely the sorrowful expression on that kind, heart shaped face, not a thing hidden from the world, and his voice was uncharacteristically gentle.

"Yes, I suppose you're right, Mrs. Wilkes. I suppose you're right."

"Captain Butler, how will you find out where the fighting is?"

Rhett held the door tightly, and his shoulders were tense. "Mrs. Wilkes," he replied, "I haven't the faintest idea."

Indian summer lingered into the first days of November, and these warm days were bright ones for the residents of Tara, that is, for all except Scarlett and Rhett. They moved through the house as if they were not really present, faces drawn, engulfed their respective worlds of problems. On the surface, there was no reason for worry; now they had fried eggs for breakfast and fried ham to vary the monotony of peanuts, dried applies, and swamp game. The old sow had been captured and she and her brood runted and grunted happily under the house.

But the temporary security meant merely that Scarlett had time to struggle with the dilemma that had been bothering her since her visit to the Fontaines. What were her feelings for Rhett? She tried to quell the treacherous part of her mind that raised this question with images of Ashley, his blonde haired absentness, the wistful way he looked at her when he thought she didn't notice. So what did it matter that he was married, Scarlett asked herself desperately, as long as he loved her? And she knew he did! He had nearly said it the last time she had seen him that Christmas- before- before he had been captured. And here her heart panged and hot ears pricked behind her eyes. When she thought of her Ashley rotting in a Yankee prison, she would swear that there would be no other man but Ashley in her life. And then Rhett would walk into the room with his panther-like laziness and his careless unclothing glances, and her resolve would shatter all over again. He was as patient with the childlike Gerald as he was roguish with Scarlett. Indeed, he and Gerald became a common sight on the place, her father's portly figure stumping along, Rhett slowing his quick tread to keep pace with the old man. Scarlett once even heard Gerald's brogue boom across the fields as it had before the war, and she came running out without her slippers to see Gerald cussing at the top of his lungs because a rock had poked through his the sole of his shoe. Rhett was collapsing with laughter nearby.

Rhett himself was acting quite strange lately, Scarlett noted. When she turned her head sometimes, she would find him watching her with a keen inscrutable expression in his dark eyes. She would always drop her gaze uncomfortably in these occasions, afraid that his sharp eyes would sense her confusion towards him and understand the reasons for it. He was not at peace either, she knew. She often heard him pacing the floor in his room, and the smell of the rabbit tobacco he had taken to smoking drifted under her door until the late hours of the night. She wondered dimly what could be tormenting him, but did not venture to ask him.

After all, she had enough troubles of her own without Rhett's thrown in. Despite Grandma Fontaine's tart remarks, Scarlett had no intention of picking the cotton herself. She, after all, was an O'Hara lady and not meant for such menial tasks as working in the fields. It would put her on the same level as Mrs. Slatterly and the trashy Emmie. She had intended that Mammy and the others should do the picking while she and the girls attended to the house. But Mammy and Pork protested so loudly and picked so spasmodically that she sent Mammy back to the kitchen and Pork back to splitting kindling and carrying water buckets.

She had next tried her sisters and Melanie in the fields, but that had worked no better. Melanie had picked neatly, quickly, and willingly for an hour but then fainted and had to stay in bed for a week. Suellen had pretended to faint too, but came to, spitting like an angry cat when Scarlett dumped a bucket of water on her face.

She had considered asking Rhett to help in the fields but soon abandoned that idea almost immediately. It was sheer stupidity to force the sole healthy male of the house to pick cotton when there were dozens of other tasks for him to do- hunting, fishing, splitting kindling. Rhett himself never offered to aid in the cotton picking. Although the family had enough food to sustain them, he was constantly off hunting in the swamps and came home with so much game that they had to salt it and store it in the pantry. When Scarlett questioned why he spent so much time gathering food, hinting that he might help her instead, Rhett replied laconically that winter was coming quicker than they realized.

And so Scarlett labored on in the never-ending cotton rows with her unwilling sisters, Dilcey, and Prissy for company. Careen picked diligently and earnestly, but after an hours' worth of labor, she had to rest under the shade of a tall pine. Scarlett worriedly watched her out of the corner of her eye. Carreen had always been as delicately pink and white as the orchard blossoms that are scattered by the spring wind, was no longer pink but still conveyed in her sweet thoughtful face a blossomlike quality.

Since she had come back to consciousness and found Ellen dead and the world changed, she ould not comprehend what had happened and she went around Tara like a sleepwalker, doing exactly what she was told. When not doing Scarlett's bidding, her rosary beads were in her hands and her lips moving in prayers for her mother and for Brent Tarleton.

Scarlett did not understand that Careen had loved Brent and that her heart was be broken by his death. In her mind Careen would always be her baby sister, far too young to have had a serious love affair. And Scarlett was more than annoyed by Careen's constant praying. God had not seen to it that her family had enough to eat for the winter. God had not blistered his hands picking cotton and drawing water. God had left them to starve and He did not deserve her prayers, or frighten her any more. She eyed Careen, resting under the pine tree. Yes, the silly girl was still praying, out of breath though she was.

Why didn't she do something useful instead? Scarlett wondered bitterly. Why, just that morning, Sally Fontaine had ridden over with the news that the commissary department was nearby and would probably be at Tara tomorrow. The news had thrown Scarlett into a frenzy, and she had instructed Mammy to hide as much food as she could and told Pork to move the pigs to the swamp. Rhett, on the other hand, had taken the news with a queer gleam in his eyes, and had actually been whistling as he went into the swamps with his pistol and traps.

Now, Rhett emerged from the thick pine wood forest with something distinctly brown and furry slung over his broad shoulders. Coming across Careen in the shade of the pine tree, he bent down to talk to her. Scarlett's eyebrow went up at Rhett's courteous, kindly attitude. She didn't think Rhett had spoken two words to her sister in his life, and even though she was too far to overhear their conversation, she could tell from Careen's body language that she was just as surprised as Scarlett. Whatever he was saying, however, soon seemed to put her at ease, and Scarlett even saw her sister smile once, weakly, to be sure, but still a smile.

As the conversation lingered on Scarlett felt her irritation mounting and her sack of cotton hung by her side, forgotten. She was just about to march over to the two of them and ask what was so damned interesting that they were going to spend all day talking about it, when Suellen spoke up. She had been standing unnoticed by Scarlett's side for some time. She wore a tattered hat in a vain attempt to prevent freckles from sprouting on her face, and Scarlett could see a triumphant gleam in her jealous watery eyes.

"Looks like your Captain Butler isn't wrapped as firmly around your little finger as you thought he was, Scarlett. Why is he here, anyhow? And why do you let him stay? He's less impressed with your charms than that sow under our porch." She scoffed meanly. "All you've done is put us in crushing debt to that wicked man- and now I bet he can take advantage of us anyway he pleases."

Scarlett turned on her like a small fury. She was insinuating that she was desperately trying to get Rhett and that the O'Haras were living at his mercy! God's nightgown, if she wouldn't box Suellen's ears today!

Suellen saw the mad rage in Scarlett's eyes and hastily fled, throwing her bag of cotton on the ground. Seeing the white balls, the fruit of her labor, sprawled on the red earth, Scarlett shrieked. Forgetting all propriety, she picked up the hem of her dress chased Suellen through the rows of cotton.

Suellen, looking back and seeing her sister after her, sprinted so quickly one might have thought she was a soldier in the infantry and not a recovering invalid. Still, Scarlett was closing the distance until a fallen stalk of cotton nearly tripped her and sent sharp pains through her entire leg. She swore with gusto and a savage satisfaction.

"Susan Elinor O'Hara!" she bellowed. "Let me get my hands on you and we'll see if I don't wring your scrawny little neck! I'll shut up your whining forever, you- you little idiot!"

From behind her came the sound of ceaseless mirth, and she whipped around to see Rhett doubled over in unapologetic peals of joy, hands folded over his worn white shirt, one hand still gripping the brown furry animal he had caught in the woods. Evidently, he had been chasing after her as well, and Scarlett scowled at him darkly.

"What are you laughing at?" she snapped, massaging her leg beneath her tattered dress. "Get up, for heaven's sakes, you look like a fool."

Rhett straightened up, and with difficulty, composed his face into a wide grin. When he spoke there was a mock seriousness in his voice.

"I- ahem-I do beg your pardon, Scarlett. It's not every day I see such a hot pursuit as the one I've just been treated to. Perhaps you can understand my mirth when I saw you, with no apparent reason, tear across the fields after your sister in what was an excellent imitation of the Pamplona bull run." He laughed again, bringing the lines in his cheeks into relief. "What was the poor Spaniard's crime?" He saw the confusion in her eyes and hurriedly added, "I mean, what was it all about?"

"None of your business," grumbled Scarlett. Rhett shrugged, still in good humor. She eyed him carefully as he made his way towards the whitewashed main house in the distance.

Suellen was a whining fool, she thought, but even she had gotten one thing right. Why was Rhett here? He, who loved the pleasures of good food and pretty women, was working a run-down plantation with good humor. He did not so much as mention that he could be anywhere else- Europe, California, the North, even. Inexperienced and generally uninterested in the inner turmoil of others, she could not understand Rhett's motives. This would not have troubled Scarlett, if she could have at least understood what payment he might demand for this unexpected kindness.

All her life she had lived with men as clear as the stream that ran around Tara- gentlemen who acted on the unspoken code of bravery in war, chivalry towards women, honor in death. Rhett, at least by his own profession, was not one of these men, but neither was he like Hilton or Wilkerson, with their sliminess and care for only business and pleasure. Scarlett could not make head or tail of him, and how ardently she wished she could!

She bit her dry lower lip in a rare sign of anxiousness. After a moment, the forthright common sense of Gerald spoke in her mind. Why didn't she simply ask him why he was staying? Her mouth popped open and she wondered that she hadn't thought of this before. As soon as she had the chance, Scarlett told herself, she would talk to him alone.

What Scarlett hadn't bargained for, however, was Mammy. With her unerring instinct, Mammy had sensed something in the air between the two of them, and she stuck to Scarlett like a cockleburr for the rest of the day. Whenever Scarlett attempted to draw her out of the room on some errand, she narrowed her keen eyes in her wrinkled face and passed on the order to Dilcey or Prissy. Scarlett was at her wit's end as to what to do, as she sat sewing by firelight, not a single stitch escaping Mammy's sharp eyes. Rhett sprawled in a chair smoking, taking in the whole scene with discernable amusement. Scarlett realized, unwillingly, that the only way to talk to him would be after everyone had gone to bed, another one of their midnight meetings that for once she would have to initiate, rather than him barging in after a nightmare. Scarlett glanced up and met his gaze for a split second, and for once, she hoped that he would be able to read her like a book, understand the request in her green eyes. Something flickered in his face before it was once again a smooth, deceptive blank.

A few minutes later, he stood up and stretched his muscles lazily, like a cat in the sun.

"Well, I'm off to bed. Good night, Scarlett, Mammy."

Mammy waited until she had heard his door shut, and then turned to Scarlett, a troubled expression on her kind black face.

"Miss Scarlett, Ah knows Mist' Rhett done a whole lot fer dis fambly dese past months, but lamb, doan you ferget dat you is an O'Hara an' Miz Ellen's chile, an' jes 'cause some man show you some kindness, it doan mean you got ter sell yo' soul to him or yer seff respec' neither." Worry flickered in her old eyes. "Jes remember dat, chile."

Scarlett blinked, astonished, and then smiled a rare warm smile at Mammy's words. She was a martinet and a terror, to be sure, but Mammy did care about her. Scarlett knew she was speaking the truth.

Moonlight slanted through the holes in her tattered curtains, creating a transluscent spiderweb on the white sheets of Scarlett's wide bed. Scarlett was propped up on her pillows, a relatively untorn cream wrapper close about her throat and her slanting green eyes open in the darkness. She had been listening carefully for the past two hours, pinching herself occasionally to keep awake.

Scowling up at the moonlight dancing on her ceiling, Scarlett decided that if Rhett did not emerge in the next half an hour, she was going to barge into his room and force him to wake up, no matter- she shrunk away- no matter what state of dishabille he might be in.

Luckily for her (and him, she supposed), she soon heard the nearly imperceptible sound of his door opening, and his light Indian-like tread proceeded past her room and toward the stairs. Waiting a few minutes to follow him, she pushed back the covers gently and stood up, silvery shadows guiding her winding way down the stairs.

When she reached the base of the stairs Rhett was nowhere to be seen. To her immense relief, the front door was ajar and she moved quietly in her slippers through the hallway and onto the gray front steps of Tara. In the distance, Scarlett saw Rhett laid on a tattered pink blanket. He was a distant square in the overgrown front lawn, feet crossed, brawny arms folded behind his head. Scarlett cautiously picked her way through the weeds and when she reached the side of his blanket, his dark eyes flickered. He said nothing, however, and a gust of wind rocked through the pine trees and made a ghostly sound. Scarlett drew her wrapper more closely around her throat.

"Rhett, why on earth did you come all the way out here?" she asked, mildly annoyed, for the rocks were poking through the thin soles of her slippers. He raised a dark eyebrow at her before turning his head back up towards the sky.

"I'm looking at the stars."

Scarlett laughed incredulously. What on earth had come over him tonight? Rhett Butler, manly, danger-loving scoundrel, was lying in the grass stargazing like a hopeless romantic. She'd never expected to see such a sight, she thought, eyes travelling over his broad body in the long grass.

"Don't laugh," he said softly, and taking her hand, he pulled her down onto the blanket next to him. For a moment, Scarlett was uncomfortably aware of the beating of her heart in the darkness, of the warm body beside hers. Rhett gestured to the frosty autumn sky.

"Just look up. I like to come out and look at the sky every so often." The corner of his mouth turned up wryly. "It clears your mind a bit, reminds you how small we really are."

Scarlett looked up curiously at the starry blanket of the sky, stretching far past the horizon of Tara into the darkness. She remembered doing this with her mother in another lifetime. Ellen had known all the constellations; she would name them one by one to Scarlett when her sisters were asleep and Gerald was out getting roaring drunk in Jonesboro. Moonlight had cast Scarlett's upturned face into marble, her eyes into deep emerald. Lost in reverie, she did not see Rhett look at her and catch his breath, a leaping light in his dark eyes that was gone when she at last turned to him. Rhett had not left her hand and now she felt him turn it over, feeling the rough blisters and hard calluses with his strong fingers. Rhett's head was bent and he looked as if he were mulling over some troubling matter, running his fingers musingly up and down her palm. Scarlett gulped. Desperately she tried to shake off the tingling that had taken ahold of her at his touch, this treacherous warmth that made her stomach flutter and tingle. The night air, before so chilly, suddenly felt damp and warm upon her wrapper-clad body.

His sharp nails hit a blister and Scarlett cried out before she could stop herself, meeting his questioning gaze sheepishly.

"The- the cotton picking causes dry boils, you see," she explained nervously. He said nothing and she continued to blabber. "Next year it won't be so bad, because I'll make the Confederate government send back Big Sam and the rest of the boys. They can help me plant and pick and then-"

Rhett brought his head up suddenly, violently, his black eyes blazing with an anger that made her shrink from him on the blanket.

"You'll make them give back the slaves, all hundred or more, will you? And then what?" He laughed mockingly, really a bark, Scarlett thought in confusion. "Then I suppose Tara will go back to producing a hundred bales of cotton instead of three, will it? And Mr. Wilkes will come skipping back from Rock Island and elope with you to Texas. Isn't that what you think will happen? What's the matter? Can's answer me?" Scarlett struggled to find words, torn between surprise at his sudden outburst, indignation, and humiliation.

"You're a fool, Scarlett O'Hara," he growled, and the way he pronounced the word 'fool' turned it into the worst insult he could offer.

Impotent rage gnawed at her vitals and she glared stormily at Rhett. How dare he attack the only two hopes which had sustained her for the past few months, with his his mocking and condescending tone? Yes, she hoped that after the war ended, life would gradually resume its old face. And in the moments when she felt most down, she did tell herself that Ashley's return was sure to bring back some meaning in her life beyond animal hunger and unending labor. But in the light of his snide comments her cherished dreams appeared like nothing but the meaningless fantasies of a silly child, and suddenly she wanted to mercilessly rend him from limb to limb, to hurt him as he hurt her.

"If you look down on me so much for my foolishness," she spit savagely, "why are you here? Why don't you go join the army and fight the Yankees like a real man? Instead of hiding in the countryside with a bunch of women and cripples like a cowar—ah!"

Rhett swiftly pushed her down on the blanket and pinned her wrists with unyielding hands. Uselessly she struggled to draw out of his rough grip, bucking up and down like a wild animal. A surge of fear ripped through her body as she realized she was completely helpless. He could kill her here, in the dark fields of Tara, before anyone could intervene- or even worse—awash with a desperate courage, she struggled again against his cruel hands and opened her mouth to scream, but Rhett moved to cover her mouth while his elbow kept down her arm. The moonlight struck his stubbled jaw and he leaned over her, until his nose nearly touched hers.

"Don't ever call me a coward," he snarled.

He was breathing hard and his hot breath fell on her pale cheeks. Scarlett realized numbly that she was trembling. She gazed up, paralyzed, mouth still covered by his broad hand. As he saw her wide green eyes, some of the deadly rage faded from his contorted face and a deep flash of- remorse? she wondered dizzily- crossed it. She felt the vice-like pressure on her wrists slackening and the weight on her chest vanish. Rhett turned away his face rom her as he sat up on the blanket. Scarlett breathed heavily, and somewhere in the forest an owl hooted. She stared at the muscles of his broad back, unsure of what had just taken place. Her mind danced with anger and fear and the uncomfortable memory of how close his face had been to hers. When Rhett finally spoke, his words were rough with emotion.

"Forgive me, Scarlett."

She never knew later why she had done it, but out of the tumult of emotions in her mind she reached out a shaking hand to touch him.

"Rhett." she said simply. Rhett turned swiftly and before she knew what was happening, his arms went around her, crushing her body against his chest as if he would never let go. Somehow they were on the tumbled blanket and he was kissing her. She was limp in his arms and his deft hands were pulling loose her hair to flow about her shoulders, naked where the wrapper had fallen loose. In the swimming haze of darkness that was upon her she wondered if there had ever existed anything but his lips upon hers, if this insistent mouth had not pressed upon hers since the beginning of time, sending wild tremors through every trilling nerve of her body. She was gasping for air as his deft mouth traveled down her slender neck, lingering on points of her white skin with pressure that made her giddy and hot. My god! She had never been so affected by kisses from the Tarletons and Calverts, not even Ashley's lips had inspired in her the utter madness that gripped her now. For it must be madness that made her run her hands through his shining black hair and pull his swarthy face to her neck, every inch of her body craving to be closer to him in this darkness punctuated by starlight. But even in the heat of her desire, there was an instinctive cry in her when his traversing mouth reached the cameo that fastened her basque.

"Stop, Stop! You musn't!" she cried, pushing him away with clammy hands. She saw that there was a queer flame in his black eyes and that he was trembling. Or perhaps she was trembling. Perhaps both.

For a moment they were still together on the blanket, both breathing hard. Scarlett's mind was strangely blank, but she felt something electric, intoxicating, in the charged air between them.

In the distance a familiar creaking sound echoed in the air, but it was a moment before she could comprehend what this noise was that she had heard since babyhood. Then comprehension came to her stupified mind and her stomach dropped sickeningly.

"My god!" she gasped, sitting up abruptly. The world swirled around her dizzyingly for a moment in shades of black and blue. Desperately she craned her head towards the direction of Tara.

"Was that the front door closing?" she turned to Rhett in a frenzy, her hands searching for his shoulder beside her. " Rhett, Someone's seen us! Look- the door's closed now and it was wide open before!"

"Calm down," Rhett said, reassuringly. But his eyes peered alertly into the dark windows of the house. "It was probably just a gust of wind."

Well, it was windy, to be sure, thought Scarlett, trying to satisfy herself with his explanation. She took a deep breath of the suddenly cold night air and drew her wrapper about her shoulders. Still the dreadful suspicion would not leave her mind. Scarlett looked around, taking in the creased blanket, Rhett's half undone shirt, the overgrown grass and the stars above. She had to get back into bed before someone noticed she was gone, she thought, with a steely businesslike quality. She couldn't think of what had passed now, she'd think of it later, when she could make sense of it all. She moved to get up from the blanket, but Rhett grabbed her arm again. His eyes glimmered and he looked almost troubled. A wave of dreadful uncertaintly washed though Scarlett, although she didn't know why. Later she thought it must have been a premonition.

"Wait a minute, my dear. I came out here in the first place to tell you something, and well, ask you something. And I haven't done either yet." Rhett's eyes moved over the shadows of her body and he cleared his throat, drawing a deep breath.

"Scarlett, I'm leaving. I'm joining the army."

A/N: I'm back! After an-er- dreadfully long time. Welcome to new readers and welcome back to the old ones! Your reviews had a major impact on bringing me back to this tale. I believe it had too much potential to waste. Please review and share your thoughts!