So why didn’t she love him? She had thought about it, she’d thought often and long. But she couldn’t, she didn’t care enough.

I want to love somebody. I know how it feels to love, it’s the best feeling in the world. I can’t bear the unfairness, that I learned about loving too late. Charles loves me, and I want to be loved, I need it. I’m lonely by myself without it. Why can’t I love him?

Because I love Rhett, that’s why. That’s why for Charles and for every other man in the world. They’re none of them Rhett.

You will never have Rhett, her mind told her.

And her heart cried out in anguish: Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I can ever completely forget it? Do you think that it doesn’t haunt me every time I see him in Cat? Do you think it doesn’t spring on me from nowhere just when I believe that my life is my own?

Scarlett wrote carefully, looking for the kindest words she knew to say no to Charles Ragland. He would never understand if she told him that she truly liked him, that in a very small way perhaps she even loved him because he loved her, and that her affection for him made it impossible for her to marry him. She wished better for him than a wife who would forever belong to another man.


The year’s final house party was not far from Kilbride, which was not far from Trim. Scarlett could drive herself instead of all the complications of taking the train. She left very early in the morning when it was still cool. Her horses were suffering from the heat, despite being sponged down four times a day. Even she had started to feel it; she felt twitchy and sweaty almost all night when she was trying to sleep. Thank heaven it was August. The summer was almost done, if it would only admit it.

The sky was still tinged with pink, but there was already a haze of heat in the distance. Scarlett hoped she’d calculated the time right for the trip. She’d like to have her horse and herself in the shade when the sun was full up.

I wonder if Nan Sutcliffe will be up? She never looked like an early riser to me. No matter. I wouldn’t mind having a cool bath and changing my clothes before I see anybody. I do hope there’s a decent maid for me here, not like that ham-handed idiot at the Giffords’. She practically tore the sleeves off my frocks hanging them up. Maybe Mrs. Fitz is right, she usually is. But I don’t want a personal maid hanging around me every minute of my life. Peggy Quinn does all I need at home, and if people want me to come visit they’ll just have to put up with me not bringing my maid. I really should give a house party myself, to pay back all the hospitality I owe. Everyone has been so kind . . . But not yet. Next summer will do. I can say this year was just too hot, plus I was worried about the farms . . .

Two men stepped from shadows on each side of the road. One caught the horse’s bridle; the other was pointing a rifle. Scarlett’s mind raced, her heart did too. Why hadn’t she thought to bring the revolver with her? Maybe they’d just take her rig and her cases and let her walk back to Trim if she swore not to tell what they looked like. Idiots! Why couldn’t they at least be wearing those masks, like she’d read about in the newspaper?

For the love of God! They were in uniform, they weren’t Whiteboys at all.

“Damn your eyes, you scared me half to death!” She could barely see the men. The green uniforms of the Royal Irish Constabulary blended into the shadowy hedgerows.

“I’ll have to ask you for some identification, madam,” said the man holding her horse. “Kevin, you look in the back there.”

“Don’t you dare touch my things. Who do you think you are? I am Mrs. O’Hara of Ballyhara, on my way to the Sutcliffes’ at Kilbride. Mr. Sutcliffe is a magistrate, and he’ll see to it that both of you end up in the dock!” She didn’t really know that Ernest Sutcliffe was a magistrate, but he looked like one with his bushy ginger mustache.

“Mrs. O’Hara is it?” The Kevin who’d been told to search her buggy came forward beside her. He took off his hat. “We heard tell of you in barracks, ma’am. I was asking Johnny here only a couple of weeks ago should we go over and make ourselves known to you?”

Scarlett stared incredulously. “Whatever for?” she said.

“They’re saying you’re from America, Mrs. O’Hara, a fact I can tell the truth of myself after hearing you speak. They’re also saying you come from the grand state called Georgia. It’s a place we two hold a fondness for in our hearts, seeing we both fought in the army there back in ’sixty-three and more.”

Scarlett smiled. “You did?” Think of meeting someone from home on the road to Kilbride. “Where were you? What part of Georgia? Were you with General Hood?”

“No, ma’am, I was one of Sherman’s boys. Johnny there, he was with the Confederates, that’s where he got the name, for Johnny Reb and all that.”

Scarlett shook her head to clear it. She couldn’t be hearing right. But more questions and more answers confirmed it. The two men, both Irish, were now the best of friends. With happy shared memories of being on opposite sides in a savage war.

“I don’t understand,” she admitted at last. “You were trying to kill each other fifteen years ago, and you’re friends now. Don’t you even argue about the North and the South and who was right?”

“Johnny Reb” laughed. “What’s it to a soldier the right and the wrong of it all? He’s there for the fighting, that’s what he likes. Doesn’t matter who you’re fighting, long as he gives you a good fight.”


When Scarlett reached the Sutcliffes’ house she shocked their butler almost out of his professional composure by asking for a brandy with her coffee. She was more confused than she could handle.

Afterwards she bathed and put on a fresh frock and came downstairs, her composure restored. Until she saw Charles Ragland. He shouldn’t be at this party! She acted as if she hadn’t noticed him.

“Nan, how lovely you look. And I just love your house. My room’s so pretty I might stay forever.”

“Nothing would please me more, Scarlett. You know John Graham, don’t you?”

“Only by reputation. I’ve been angling for an introduction. How do you do, Mr. Graham?”

“Mrs. O’Hara.” John Graham was a tall slender man with the loose-limbed ease of the natural athlete. He was the Master of Hounds of the Galway Blazers, perhaps the most famous hunt in all Ireland. Every fox hunter in Great Britain hoped to be invited to join one of the Blazers’ hunts. Graham knew it, and Scarlett knew that he knew it. There was no point in being coy.

“Mr. Graham, are you open to bribery?” Why didn’t Charles quit staring at her like that? What was he doing here anyhow?

John Graham threw back his silvered head in laughter. His eyes were lively with it when he looked back down at Scarlett. “I have always heard that you Americans come straight to the point, Mrs. O’Hara. Now I see it’s true. Tell me, what precisely did you have in mind?”

“Would an arm and a leg do? I can stay on a sidesaddle with one leg—it’s the only good thing about a sidesaddle that I can think of—and I only need one hand for the reins.”

The Master smiled. “Such an extravagant offer. I’ve heard that about Americans, too, that they tend to extravagance.”

Scarlett was tiring of banter. And Charles’ presence made her edgy. “What you may not have heard, Mr. Graham, is that Americans take fences where the Irish go through gates and the English go back home. If you’ll let me ride with the Blazers, I’ll take at least a pad or I’ll eat a flock of crows in front of you all—without salt.”

“By God, madam, with style like yours, you’ll be welcome any time you say.”

Scarlett smiled. “I’ll take you up on that.” She spit in her hand. Graham smiled broadly and spit in his. The slap they gave each other’s palm resounded throughout the long gallery.

Then Scarlett strode over to Charles Ragland. “I told you in my letter, Charles, that this was the one house party in the whole country you should stay away from. It’s mean of you to come.”

“I’m not here to embarrass you, Scarlett. I wanted to tell you myself, not in a letter. You needn’t worry about my pressing you or importuning you. I understand that no means no. The regiment’s going to Donegal next week; it was my last chance to say what I wanted to say. And, I confess, to see you again. I promise not to lurk or gaze with soulful eyes.” he smiled with rueful humor. “I practiced that speech, too. How did it sound?”

“Pretty fair. What’s in Donegal?”

“Whiteboy trouble. It seems to be more concentrated there than any other county.”

“Two constables stopped me to search my buggy.”

“All the patrols are out now. With rents coming due soon—but I don’t want to talk military. What did you say to John Graham? I haven’t seen him laugh like that in years.

“Do you know him?”

“Very well. He’s my uncle.”

Scarlett laughed until her sides ached. “You English. Is that what ‘diffident’ means? If you’d only brag a little, Charles, you could have saved me a lot of trouble. I’ve been trying to get with the Blazers for a year, but I didn’t know anybody.”

“The one you’ll really like is my Aunt Letitia. She can ride Uncle John into the ground and never look back. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”


There were promising rumbles of thunder, but no rain. By midday the air was stifling. Ernest Sutcliffe rang the dinner gong to get everyone’s attention. He and his wife had planned something different for the afternoon, he said nervously. “There is the usual croquet and archery, what? Or the library and billiards in the house, what? Or whatever one does customarily. What?”