Alexandra Ripley - Scarlett

“You don’t stand a chance,” Scarlett said confidently. “We understand each other, Cat and I, and she won’t put up with babying and spoiling from you.”

“How about adoring?”

“Oh, she’s used to that. She’s always had it from me.”

“We’ll see. I have a way with women, I’ve been told.”

“And she has a way with men. She’ll have you jumping through hoops before a week’s out. There was a little boy named Billy Kelly—oh, Rhett, guess what? Ashley’s married. I did the matchmaking. I sent Billy’s mother to Atlanta . . .” The story of Harriet Kelly led to the news that India Wilkes had finally found a husband, which led to the news that Rosemary was still a spinster.

“And likely to stay one,” Rhett said. “She is at Dunmore Landing, plowing money into restoring the rice fields and getting to be more like Julia Ashley every day.”

“Is she happy?”

“She glows with it. She would have packed my things herself if it would have hurried my departure.”

Scarlett’s eyes questioned him. Yes, Rhett said, he had left Charleston. It had been a mistake to think that he could ever be content there. “I’ll go back. Charleston never gets out of the blood of a Charlestonian, but I’ll go to visit, not to stay.” He had tried, he’d told himself that he wanted the stability of family and tradition. But in the end, he began to feel the nagging pain where his wings had been clipped. He couldn’t fly. He was earthbound, ancestor, Saint Cecilia–bound, Charleston-bound. He loved Charleston—God, how he loved it—its beauty and its grace and its soft-scented salt breezes and its courage in the face of loss and ruin. But it wasn’t enough. He needed challenge, risk, some kind of blockade to be run.

Scarlett breathed a quiet sigh. She hated Charleston, and she was sure Cat would, too. Thank heaven Rhett wasn’t going to take them back there.

In a quiet voice, she asked about Anne. Rhett was silent for what seemed to her a very long time. Then he spoke, and his voice was heavy with sorrow. “She deserved better than me, better than life granted her. Anne had a quiet bravery and strength that puts every so-called hero to shame . . . I was more than half crazy about that time. You’d gone, and no one knew where you were. I believed you were punishing me, so to punish you, and to prove that I didn’t care about your leaving, I got the divorce. An amputation.”

Rhett stared into space, unseeing. Scarlett waited. He prayed he hadn’t hurt Anne, he said. He’d searched his memory and his soul, and he could find no willful hurt. She was too young, and she loved him too much, to suspect that tenderness and affection were only the shadows of a man’s loving. He would never know what blame he should take for marrying her. She’d been happy. One of the injustices of the world was that it was so easy to make the innocent and caring ones happy with so little.

Scarlett put her head on his shoulder. “It’s a lot, making somebody happy,” she said. “I didn’t understand that until Cat was born. I didn’t understand a lot of things. Somehow, I learned from her.”

Rhett rested his cheek on her head. “You’ve changed, Scarlett. You’ve grown up. I have to get to know you all over again.”

“I have to get to know you, period. I never did, even when we were together. I’ll do better this time, I promise.”

“Don’t try too hard, you’ll wear me out.” Rhett chuckled, then kissed her forehead.

“Stop laughing at me, Rhett Butler—no, don’t. I like it, even when it makes me mad.” She sniffed the air. “It’s raining. That should finish off the fires. When the sun comes up, we’ll be able to see if anything’s left. We should try and get some sleep. We’re going to be very busy in a few hours.” She nestled her head into the hollow of his neck and yawned.

While she slept, Rhett moved her, lifted her into his arms and sat down again, holding her as she had held Cat. The gentle Irish rain made a curtain of soft silence around the old stone tower.

At sunrise, Scarlett stirred and woke. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Rhett’s beard-shadowed, hollow-eyed face, and she smiled contentedly. Then she stretched, moaning softly. “I hurt all over,” Scarlett complained. Her brow wrinkled. “And I’m starving to death.”

“Consistency, thy name is woman,” murmured Rhett. “Get up, my love, you’re breaking my legs.”

They walked carefully to Cat’s hideaway. It was dark, but they could hear her soft snoring. “She sleeps with her mouth open if she turns over onto her back,” Scarlett whispered.

“A child of many talents,” Rhett said.

Scarlett stifled her laughter. She took Rhett’s hand and drew him with her to a window. The sight that met their eyes was sobering. Dozens of dark fingers of smoke reached up from every direction, making dirty stains on the tender rose color of the sky. Scarlett’s eyes filled with tears.

Rhett put his arm around her shoulders. “We can build it all back, darling.”

Scarlett blinked away the tears. “No, Rhett, I don’t want to. Cat’s not safe in Ballyhara, and I guess I’m not either. I won’t sell up, this is O’Hara land, and I won’t let it go. But I don’t want another Big House, or another town. My cousins can find some farmers to work the land. No matter how much shooting and burning, the Irish will always love the land. Pa used to tell me it was like his mother to an Irishman.

“But I don’t belong here, not any more. Maybe I never did really, or I wouldn’t have been so ready to go off to Dublin and house parties and hunts . . . I don’t know where I belong, Rhett. I don’t even feel at home any more when I go to Tara.”

To Scarlett’s surprise, Rhett laughed, and the laughter was rich with joy. “You belong with me, Scarlett, haven’t you figured out? And the world is where we belong, all of it. We’re not home-and-hearth people. We’re the adventurers, the buccaneers, the blockade runners. Without challenge, we’re only half alive. We can go anywhere, and as long as we’re together, it will belong to us. But, my pet, we’ll never belong to it. That’s for other people, not for us.”

He looked down at her, the corners of his mouth quivering with amusement. “Tell me the truth on this first morning of our new life together, Scarlett. Do you love me with your whole heart, or did you simply want me because you couldn’t have me?”

“Why, Rhett, what a nasty thing to say! I love you with all heart and I always will.”

The pause before Scarlett answered his question was so infinitesimal that only Rhett could have heard it. He threw his head back and roared with laughter. “My beloved,” he said, “I can see that our lives are never going to be dull. I can hardly wait to get started.”

A small grimy hand tugged on his trousers. Rhett looked down.

“Cat will go with you,” said his daughter.

He lifted her to his shoulder, his eyes glistening with emotion. “Are you ready, Mrs. Butler?” he asked Scarlett. “The blockades are waiting for us.”

Cat laughed gleefully. She looked at Scarlett with eyes that were bright with shared secrets. “The old ladder is under my quilts, Momma. Grainne told me to save it.”