第222章

For a moment she was indignant that he should say other women were prettier, more clever and kind than she, but that momentary flare was wiped out in her pleasure that he had remembered her and her charm. So he hadn’t forgotten! That would make things easier. And he was behaving so nicely, almost like a gentleman would do under the circumstances. Now, all she had to do was bring the subject around to himself, so she could intimate that she had not forgotten him either and then—She gently squeezed his arm and dimpled again.

“Oh, Rhett, how you do run on, teasing a country girl like me! I know mighty well you never gave me a thought after you left me that night. You can’t tell me you ever thought of me with all those pretty French and English girls around you. But I didn’t come all the way out here to hear you talk foolishness about me. I came—I came— because—”

“Because?”

“Oh, Rhett, I’m so terribly distressed about you! So frightened for you! When will they let you out of that terrible place?” He swiftly covered her hand with his and held it hard against his arm.

“Your distress does you credit. There’s no telling when I’ll be out. Probably when they’ve stretched the rope a bit more.”

“The rope?”

“Yes, I expect to make my exit from here at the rope’s end.”

“They won’t really hang you?”

“They will if they can get a little more evidence against me.”

“Oh, Rhett!” she cried, her hand at her heart.

“Would you be sorry? If you are sorry enough, I’ll mention you in my will.”

His dark eyes laughed at her recklessly and he squeezed her hand.

His will! She hastily cast down her eyes for fear of betrayal but not swiftly enough, for his eyes gleamed, suddenly curious.

“According to the Yankees, I ought to have a fine will. There seems to be considerable interest in my finances at present. Every day, I am hauled up before another board of inquiry and asked foolish questions. The rumor seems current that I made off with the mythical gold of the Confederacy.”

“Well—did you?”

“What a leading question! You know as well as I do that the Confederacy ran a printing press instead of a mint.”

“Where did you get all your money? Speculating? Aunt Pittypat said—”

“What probing questions you ask!”

Damn him! Of course, he had the money. She was so excited it became difficult to talk sweetly to him.

“Rhett, I’m so upset about your being here. Don’t you think there’s a chance of your getting out?”

“ ‘Nihil desperandum’ is my motto.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means ‘maybe,’ my charming ignoramus.”

She fluttered her thick lashes up to look at him and fluttered them down again.

“Oh, you’re too smart to let them hang you! I know you’ll think of some clever way to beat them and get out! And when you do—”

“And when I do?” he asked softly, leaning closer.

“Well, I—” and she managed a pretty confusion and a blush. The blush was not difficult for she was breathless and her heart was beating like a drum. “Rhett, I’m so sorry about what I—I said to you that night—you know—at Rough and Ready. I was—oh, so very frightened and upset and you were so—so—” She looked down and saw his brown hand tighten over hers. “And—I thought then that I’d never, never forgive you! But when Aunt Pitty told me yesterday that you—that they might hang you—it came over me of a sudden and I—I—” She looked up into his eyes with one swift imploring glance and in it she put an agony of heartbreak. “Oh, Rhett, I’d die if they hanged you! I couldn’t bear it! You see, I—” And, because she could not longer sustain the hot leaping light that was in his eyes, her lids fluttered down again.

In a moment I’ll be crying, she thought in a frenzy of wonder and excitement. Shall I let myself cry? Would that seem more natural?

He said quickly: “My God, Scarlett, you can’t mean that you—” and his hands closed over hers in so hard a grip that it hurt.

She shut her eyes tightly, trying to squeeze out tears, but remembered to turn her face up slightly so he could kiss her with no difficulty. Now, in an instant his lips would be upon hers, the hard insistent lips which she suddenly remembered with a vividness that left her weak. But he did not kiss her. Disappointment queerly stirring her, she opened her eyes a trifle and ventured a peep at him. His black head was bent over her hands and, as she watched, he lifted one and kissed it and, taking the other, laid it against his cheek for a moment. Expecting violence, this gentle and loverlike gesture startled her. She wondered what expression was on his face but could not tell for his head was bowed.

She quickly lowered her gaze lest he should look up suddenly and see the expression on her face. She knew that the feeling of triumph surging through her was certain to be plain in her eyes. In a moment he would ask her to marry him—or at least say that he loved her and then ... As she watched him through the veil of her lashes he turned her hand over, palm up, to kiss it too, and suddenly he drew a quick breath. Looking down she saw her own palm, saw it as it really was for the first time in a year, and a cold sinking fear gripped her. This was a stranger’s palm, not Scarlett O’Hara’s soft, white, dimpled, helpless one. This hand was rough from work, brown with sunburn, splotched with freckles. The nails were broken and irregular, there were heavy calluses on the cushions of the palm, a half-healed blister on the thumb. The red scar which boiling fat had left last month was ugly and glaring. She looked at it in horror and, before she thought, she swiftly clenched her fist.

Still he did not raise his head. Still she could not see his face. He pried her fist open inexorably and stared at it, picked up her other hand and held them both together silently, looking down at them.

“Look at me,” he said finally raising his head, and his voice was very quiet. “And drop that demure expression.”

Unwillingly she met his eyes, defiance and perturbation on her face. His black brows were up and his eyes gleamed.

“So you have been doing very nicely at Tara, have you? Cleared so much money on the cotton you can go visiting. What have you been doing with your hands—plowing?”