Tomorrow's Dreams

by Heather Cullman

  … Literally. In a wild attempt to break his fall, the bullwacker grabbed the curtains, wrenching them from their moorings. With a whoosh! of gold velvet the curtains billowed downward, engulfing everyone onstage in their suffocating folds.

  As Penelope grappled with the imprisoned cloth, she could hear her attacker cursing in the darkness … cursing that grew louder as the seconds ticked by. Alarmed by the man’s nearness and terrified of being recaptured, she scrambled toward a sliver of light. To her everlasting relief, the sliver broadened into a warm ribbon, and she easily found an opening in the curtains.

  But her relief was short-lived. No sooner had she crawled from her velvet prison than she was pulled from the stage by another man, this one drunker and dirtier than the first.

  Violently she struggled, gagging at the stench emanating from her new captor’s filth-encrusted clothes.

  “Hows ’bout a kiss, girlie?” he growled, smiling in a way that displayed the sum of his teeth—two rotten stumps. Pinning her against his body, he ground his lips against hers, trying to force his tongue between her clenched teeth.

  Feeling as if she were living her worse nightmare, Penelope increased her struggles tenfold. But it was to no avail. Aside from grunting once when she managed to land a kick on his booted ankle, he easily ignored her frenzied efforts to escape.

  Somebody else’s efforts were harder to ignore. As the man groped at her bodice, Penelope heard a mighty smack!, which elicited an even mightier yelp! from her molester, immediately followed by a thud! and a breathless oomph! Bellowing like a wounded buffalo, the bullwacker thrust her aside and rounded on the man who was attacking him from behind.

  Without pausing to spare her rescuer so much as a backward glance, Penelope raced toward the stairs leading up to the private rooms, swatting away the arms that sought to recapture her. With breakneck speed she vaulted up the stairs until a stitch in her side forced her to sink to the steps. It was then that she heard the pounding of footsteps hot on her trail.

  On the verge of hysteria now, she tried to crawl the rest of the way up the stairs. But it was too late, and once again she was wrested into a steely grip.

  Blind to everything except her desperation to free herself, Penelope fought, kicking and punching with mindless fury. Beneath her screams she could hear the man shouting, but she was too panicked to listen. A year and a half of playing the gold circuit had taught her that most men’s intentions were less than honorable, especially where actresses were concerned. And she would have bet her lucky ribbon that this man was no exception.

  With that certainty in mind, she jabbed her elbow into her attacker’s belly with all her strength. To her relief, he uttered an agonized groan and released her. Feeling her freedom close at hand now, she gave him one final shove before turning to resume her flight. But before she could take a step, she heard him moan.

  “That’s a hell of a way to greet a man, Princess.”

  That stopped her short. Only two people ever called her Princess: her brother, Jake, and …

  “Seth Tyler!” she gasped, finally looking at her latest captor. Even slumped on the stairs with his face shadowed by his veil of sun-kissed hair, the man’s identity was unmistakable. Stunned, she slowly sank down next to him.

  Damn! Of all the people in the world, why did it have to be Seth who had discovered her in such a disreputable place, performing in such a bawdy show? Too shocked by his presence to mask her dismay, she blurted out, “What are you doing here?”

  “Shouldn’t that be my line?” he drawled, shifting aside to allow a scantily-clad saloon girl and her eager client to pass.

  “What I’m doing here should be obvious,” she replied tautly.

  “You’re doing the obvious?” He stared after the pair with a significant lift of his brow.

  It took all of Penelope’s self-control not to do a repeat performance and jab him in the belly again. “Damn it, Seth! You know better than that!”

  “Do I?” His gaze slowly and deliberately took in every tawdry detail of her appearance.

  Bristling like a cat with its back up, she hissed, “How dare you insinuate that I’d—”

  “I dare because I know you,” he snapped, effectively silencing her protests. “Have you forgotten about the little scene I witnessed in New York?”

  Penelope released an exasperated snort. Apparently the words forgive and forget weren’t in Seth Tyler’s vocabulary, just as it was equally apparent that he hadn’t come to his senses about what had happened in New York. She snorted again. Well, to hell with the narrow-minded bastard! If he wanted to hold a grudge, then so be it. She’d gladly oblige his stupidity and do the same.

  Calling forth all of her acting ability, she assumed an air of imperious cool and retorted, “You have no right to judge me on something that you’re obviously incapable of understanding.”

  He eyed her with disdain. “I’m perfectly capable of understanding what’s going on when I find a half-naked woman lolling in a man’s arms. I’d venture to guess that the foregone conclusion would be the same no matter who was drawing it.”

  Abandoning all pretense of composure, she practically shouted, “I wasn’t half-naked, and I certainly wasn’t—lolling!”

  He shrugged. “You have your definitions, and I have mine.”

  “And my definition of Seth Tyler is arrogant bastard.”

  “Is that listed before or after the term ‘trash’?” he inquired cryptically. “I believe that was the word you used to describe my person the last time we met.”

  “Well, if the title fits …”

  Seth laughed at that. “Touché. One point for the lady.”

  “One point for what?”

  “One point for your frank response, of course.”

  She shrugged dismissively. “Who’s keeping score?”

  “I am. And I feel obligated to report that you’re running woefully behind in the honesty column.”

  A thousand scathing retorts sprang to Penelope’s lips, but she firmly refrained from voicing them. It would be a cold day in hell before she rose to Seth Tyler’s bait. Pointedly ignoring his goading expression, she demanded, “What do you want? Surely you have better things to do than torment me.”

  “Better things? Yes. More entertaining? No.”

  Rankled by his arrogance, she opened her mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with his amusement, but again she stifled the urge. Instead she repeated, “What do you want?”

  “I want to know why you lied to your brother.”

  “Why I … what?” she asked, genuinely taken aback by his words. “I didn’t lie to Jake.”

  Seth raised one slashing eyebrow. “He showed me your last letter, the one where you were bragging about going abroad and singing for the crowned heads of Europe. You said that you’d be touring the Continent and therefore unable to write. So unless the Colorado Territory has been annexed by Europe and crowned a few heads in the process, I think it’s safe to assume you lied.”

  Penelope groaned privately. Of course Jake had shown Seth her letter; she should have realized he would when she wrote it. He’d probably been so puffed up with pride at her fictitious success that he’d shown it to everyone in San Francisco.

  With what she hoped was a nonchalant shrug, she gave him the same lie she’d given the opera company the night she’d announced her resignation, “I changed my plans a little, that’s all.”

  “A little?” He made a derisive noise. “Now, there’s the understatement of the century.”

  “Life in the theater can be very uncertain. Things happen, changes are made.”

  Seth folded his arms across his chest and fixed her with his flinty stare. “So tell me, Princess. What ‘thing’ happened that made you accept an engagement in this god-awful saloon?”

  Blinking once, she looked away, knowing that it was hopeless to lie and impossible to tell the truth. Taking the only avenue left open, she replied, “I didn’t write that letter to you. Therefore I don�
�t owe you an explanation. As for what I’m doing here, well, I don’t see why that is any of your concern.”

  “As your brother’s best friend, I consider it my duty to make it my concern.” His lips flattened into a grim line. “And regardless of your low opinion of me, I have too much respect for Jake to allow his sister to carry on like a common trollop.”

  Penelope flinched as if struck. “How dare you! Jake will kill you when I tell him you called me a trollop!”

  Seth emitted a bark of laughter. “Jake is a sensible man, and as such, he’s not likely to kill me for stating the obvious.” He stared pointedly at her immodest attire. “No doubt he’ll thank me for calling your lapse of morals to his attention.”

  “You wouldn’t dare risk his friendship by making such vile accusations!”

  “Watch me.” Seth rose to his feet and stood looming over her like a dark specter of doom. “I remember seeing a telegraph office down the block. By train, it shouldn’t take him more than a week to get here.” He gave her a final warning glance before turning to leave. “I’d hate to be in your shoes when he arrives. Perhaps he’ll give you the beating you so richly deserve.”

  Penelope hated the thought of being in her own shoes if her brother caught her within a hundred miles of a place like the Shakespeare. Not that Jake would beat her; he’d never laid a hand on her, though God knows her behavior had often merited it.

  No. What made her sick with dread was the prospect of facing his disappointment. Having raised her after the death of their parents, she knew that he would blame himself as much as her when he discovered what a mess she’d made of her life. And she loved him too much to bring him such pain.

  As Seth began to descend the stairs, she jumped to her feet and grasped his arm. “Wait.”

  He paused to stare at her hand on his arm, his expression as revulsed as if it were rotted by gangrene. After a long moment, his gaze slid up to her face. With a grimace he looked away.

  Acutely aware of the sordid picture she made with her heavily made-up face and garish attire, it took all her courage to say, “You once swore that you would do anything for me. You said that all I had to do was ask you.” Her expressive voice became soft, pleading. “Please, Seth. I’m asking now.”

  “Only the illustrious Penelope Parrish”—he paused to stab her with his contemptuous gaze—“or should I call you Lorelei Leroux?—would have the audacity to remind me of my lovesick promise at a time like this.” His glare burned through her. “Sorry, Princess. You forfeited the right to that promise when you took a lover.”

  “You know Julian wasn’t my lover! He was my friend, nothing more. You simply didn’t choose to understand the situation.”

  “Nor do I care to now,” he retorted, shaking himself free from her restraining grip. “So don’t ask for understanding, because I have none to give … least of all to you.”

  Sharp, irrational pain gripped Penelope’s heart at his words, and she was stunned to find tears in her eyes. “I guess I never realized just how much you loathe me,” she whispered.

  “You still don’t.”

  Drawing her few remaining shreds of dignity around her like a tattered shawl, she made one final appeal. “Please, Seth. Can’t you put your feelings for me aside for one moment and think of Jake? I know you care for him, and he you. Don’t you see how it would devastate him to have to take sides against one of us?”

  Lacking a skirt, she pleated the fabric of her full bloomers between her fingers, desperate to suppress her urge to latch on to his arm again. “And he would be forced to choose should you level such terrible accusations against me.”

  “Do you think it would devastate him any less if I were to leave you here and you were to come to harm?”

  “Of course not,” she admitted miserably.

  “Then, it appears that I’m damned no matter what I do.”

  Penelope looked up from the red flannel bunched between her fingers, shaking her head. “But it doesn’t have to be like that.”

  “Really?” He was looking down his nose at her in a way that told her that she, too, would be damned no matter what decision he should ultimately make.

  Unnerved, she disentangled her fingers from her bloomers and raised her hand to her mouth to gnaw on one well-bitten nail. Between pacifying nibbles, she suggested, “You could let me return to San Francisco quietly and resume my old life. I promise I’ll behave like a perfect lady. Nobody will ever be the wiser.”

  “After all your experience, ‘lady’ is hardly a term I would use to describe you,” he commented sarcastically.

  Penelope bit her cuticle hard enough to make it bleed. “Damn it, Seth!” She dropped her hand to her lap to dab at the wound with a handful of bloomer fabric. “I’m no more experienced now than I was in New York. Back thenz, you acted like a gentleman.”

  “Or like a gutter rat trussed up like a gentleman, as you so eloquently put it,” he shot back.

  “You know I didn’t mean that.”

  “Sure you did. But I can’t fault you for telling the truth.”

  The tears stinging in Penelope’s eyes gave way and cut zigzagging paths down her cheeks. “I only said those things because you were being such a bastard.”

  “I’m going to be an even bigger bastard if I decide to agree to your proposal. And whether or not you like it, you’re going to answer my questions.” Grasping her chin in his palm, he forced her to meet his stony gaze. “You’re going to be so firmly under my thumb that I’ll know if you so much as tremble. Understand?”

  Penelope sniffled and nodded.

  Tightening his grip on her chin, Seth pulled her face close to his. He seemed to be judging her, weighing his options. After a moment, he nodded. “I accept your proposition. But only because I want to save Jake from being hurt by your selfishness.”

  She gave him a watery smile.

  Which he ignored. Seizing her arm, he commanded, “We’re going downstairs now, and you’re going to tell the company that you’re leaving. Tonight.”

  “B-but I can’t just up and l-leave,” she stuttered, struggling to free her arm. “Not right now!”

  His grip turned bruising. “You can and you will.”

  “But you don’t understand!”

  “We’re back to that worn-out excuse, are we?” he growled impatiently. “All right. Then, explain what I don’t understand?”

  She squirmed. “I c-can’t.”

  “You mean you won’t. Well, I hope you like trains, Princess. Because I intend to have your backside enthroned on the next one back to San Francisco. There is one due the day after tomorrow.”

  His eyes took on an unholy gleam as he pinned her with his gaze. “Oh. And don’t expect an open-armed reception from your brother. I intend to telegraph the news of your disgrace ahead.”

  Hating him with the same kind of impotent hatred a prisoner feels for his warden, Penelope at last admitted to herself that he had her trapped. Frantic to escape, with nowhere to turn and no way out, the threatening storm of her emotions burst.

  “I’m not the type of man who dissolves at the sight of a weeping female, so you can stop your caterwauling,” Seth snapped as her tempest of tears became punctuated by thunderous sobs.

  She expelled a heartrending whimper.

  Seth countered with an impatient grunt. “Damnit, Penelope. I told you I would accept your proposal.”

  She choked and gave her head a despairing shake.

  Heaving a long-suffering sigh, he pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her. “I don’t see what the hell you’re so hysterical about. Do you enjoy performing half-naked?”

  “O-of c-course not! It’s n-not that at all!”

  “Then, what is it?”

  Not what, she wanted to shout. Who. Instead, she gasped, “Y-y-you w-wouldn’t—”

  “Understand,” he finished for her with a pained expression.

  She blew her nose and nodded.

  “Damn it to hell!” He looked ready to strang
le her.

  “I-I—” she wailed, before choking on her tears once again.

  Cursing graphically, Seth sat down on the stairs and pulled her onto his lap. “Sit,” he commanded when she gave a token sob of protest. Awkwardly patting her back, he mumbled, “I can’t imagine anything being as bad as all that.”

  Feeling impossibly wretched, Penelope melted against the reassuring strength of his chest. Mindless of everything except her need for solace, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face into the warm hollow at his throat.

  His body turned stiffer than an undertaker’s measuring stick. “Penelope,” he growled, seizing her arms and pulling her away. Scowling, he stared down into her tear-streaked face.

  When she looked up, their gazes met. Hers was vulnerable and pleading for understanding; his was angry and confused.

  Murmuring something about Jake never forgiving him if he let his troublesome sister drown in her own tears, Seth crushed her into his embrace. The feel of his breath softly ruffling her hair served as a potent reminder of the tenderness they had once shared. For a moment Penelope allowed herself the luxury of forgetting the terrible reality of her life and let herself revel in the soothing intimacy of his touch. Gradually her sobs eased.

  When her tears were at last spent, Seth nestled his lips close to her ear and whispered, “Better?”

  His unexpected kindness almost undid her. Ruthlessly harnessing her urge to burst into tears again, she nodded.

  “Good.” He actually smiled as he smoothed a damp curl from her cheek. “Now, why don’t you tell me what we can do about your obvious, but as of yet nameless, dilemma?”

  Penelope dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief. What she needed was time. “Three months,” she replied after a quick calculation. “Give me three months to finish my engagement here. Then I swear I’ll go home without so much as a word of protest.”

  Seth cocked his head to one side as he considered her words, unconsciously stroking the curve of her jaw. “One month,” he finally decided. “I’ll have completed my business here by then.”

  “Lorelei!” called a strident female voice, promptly echoed by a masculine one.