The Stubborn Miss Butler

3

"So, you're leaving then?" Scarlett's youngest daughter propped her parasol against her shoulder, her brow raising delicately. No, she wasn't upset anymore.

Beau blew out a breath, "Yes. Yes, I suppose I am. Your father said he'd take care of arranging for me to study at Yale. He told me he had an old friend there."

Yale University, she repeated to herself.

"Good afternoon, Miss Eleanor. Mr. Wilkes." The young Mr. Nelson passed the two walking along the opposite side of the road. His wife, whose's name Eleanor guessed was Virginia, held onto his arm dotingly. Her pale yellow bonnet matched her dress nicely enough. The lemon yellow taffeta clung to her fashionably and Eleanor noted the Parisian bustle trailing behind her in mellow tones. She wasn't a very pretty thing, but her family consisted of high military officers and Yankee officials. Mr. Nelson had made a name for himself, marrying into a good family and consequently inheriting not only a fortune but a business to keep it climbing steadily.

Eleanor hung on Beau's arm comfortably, and gave a smile and a slight nod of her head in greeting while he tipped his hat politely.

"Mr. Nelson, Mrs. Nelson," the pair chorused. Mammy taught them well to stop and say hello, beating their hides when they were younger when they passed people without a word.

"How are your parents, Miss Eleanor?"

"Fine, Mrs. Nelson." Her smile was convincingly friendly. Eleanor's cat eyes dipped demurely and her refined southern accent came away as charming as ever. Her Uncle Ashley had laughed and called her a vision of Scarlett O'Hara the first time they met. Eleanor had been five, and noticeably clever for a girl her age. She remembered she had bobbed a curtsy, smiling coyly and dipping her dark lashes. The lilt to her drawl was pronounced, odd in a girl that spent half her life in Europe, but undeniably charming. Beau had snorted. They had met before, and if anyone knew what lay behind her careful façade it was Beau. "And how do you do, Mrs. Nelson?"

Her eyes crinkled with the amusement in seeing two young people with such impeccable manners. "Very well, my darling. Thank you."

"Goodbye Miss Eleanor, Mr. Wilkes."

Beau nodded politely, the same good-natured smile across his face.

"Why, did you see the way she looked at you?"

Beau quirked a brow absurdly. "Politely?"

"No," she frowned. "I heard from Franny Pearson that Louisa Tennyson was quite smitten with you. Why, you're not going to ask her to marry you, are you?"

He contemplated the thought, wondering where on Earth Eleanor heard these things and why she even thought to see any truth in them.

"Me? Marry Louisa Tennyson?"

Louisa was Virginia's younger sister, a pretty bird of seventeen from Charleston.

"Well, don't look at me like that." Eleanor fell silent, and Beau walked a few paces waiting for her. The street passed busily, now. They had passed the residential district and the booming streets of Atlanta were coming into better focus. Buggies passed unceremoniously and no one seemed to pay much attention to either of them. Suddenly, her expression turned grim, focused on the sidewalk in front of her. Her eyes squinted the slightest in the morning sunlight and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, never knowing what to expect. He liked that about her, that she made him stand on his toes and yet she seemed to understand. "I haven't seen you in a while, you know. You haven't come back, not for ages."

"I've been busy," he explained, a feeling of guilt pressing into his chest. "My father-"

"You don't need to explain. I just- I was just worried, that's all."