Tomorrow's Dreams

by Heather Cullman

  After determining that none of the men held a hand that rivaled Harley’s four of a kind, she yawned and slapped her fan against her wrist, signaling her lover to call.

  When he shifted his body to the right in acknowledgment of her clandestine communication, she sauntered back to her position at his shoulder and returned to the problem of Seth Tyler.

  According to her calculations, at the rate Penelope was bringing in gold, it wouldn’t take more than another nine months on the gold circuit to make the remainder of the money she needed to execute her plan. With what she made from the company, combined with what she had managed to save from her stint as an abortionist in New York, she would have adequate funds to go back to Boston and set herself up as a wealthy widow.

  Adele smiled with greedy anticipation. Her plan was flawless. With the aid of a little blackmail, Miles’s wife’s family, the high and might Ellisons, should prove amenable to introducing her to a likely widower. And when she’d neatly trapped the man into marriage, she, Dorcas Grace Butler, who had once slaved in the kitchens of Boston’s crème-de-la-crème and had endured the repulsive, fumbling advances from the heads of those same households, would be the queen of Beacon Hill. As its ruler, she would see to it that every man who had ever fondled her and every woman who had ever turned her out as a result of that fondling would get their well-deserved comeuppance.

  But now Seth Tyler had entered into the equation.

  A chill cut through her like a draft from an open window. If anyone had the power to free Penelope and her brat from her imprisoning blackmail, it was the mighty Mr. Tyler.

  Suddenly Harley let out a barking cough, dropping a card in the process. On cue, Adele ducked down and retrieved the fallen card, covertly substituting the two of spades with the ace of hearts. As she handed the ace to Harley, inspiration struck.

  Like a bad card spoiling a winning hand, Seth Tyler, too, could be eliminated. As Adele resumed her vigil at Harley’s back, she found herself smiling. Eliminate Seth Tyler. Yes, that’s exactly what she’d do if he proved to be troublesome. She’d come too far and worked too hard to have her dreams snatched away by a man who was too damn attractive for his own good.

  After bribing the madame of Goldie’s Palace to keep Miles occupied, Seth returned to his room for a quick bath and a change of clothes. As he stripped off his whiskey-stained suit and stepped into the tub of steaming water, he struggled to determine the best way to handle his coming encounter with Penelope.

  She wasn’t going to be pleased when she heard the news of Miles’s delay, and that was a fact. Especially when he reminded her of their most recent bargain and insisted that she honor it.

  Drawing in a hissing breath, Seth eased his stiff body down into the tub, only to shoot back up again as his raw backside made stinging contact with the hot water. Gritting his teeth with pain, he twisted and turned until he got a clear view of his derriere. What he saw made him groan aloud.

  From the curve of his buttocks down to his upper thighs, his flesh was chafed a livid, angry red. Adding to his discomfort, his morning ride out to examine Denver’s irrigation system, a ditch running from the South Platte Canyon down to Smith Lake, had yielded not only an understanding of water distribution, but several ugly blisters on his inner thighs as well.

  Suddenly the idea of a hot bath seemed less tempting than it had only moments earlier. He toyed with the idea of skipping it altogether; then he sighed and cast the water at his feet a resigned look. It wouldn’t do to show up at Penelope’s door smelling like a saloon floor, not when he wanted to make a favorable impression. He’d just have to buck up and endure the discomfort like the man he prided himself on being.

  Besides, he added sardonically, if this was the worst pain he suffered in his rear this evening, he’d count himself lucky. After all, he was about to cross Penelope and no one was a bigger pain in the ass than Miss Parrish when she was provoked.

  As Seth stood calf-deep in water, waiting for it to cool a few degrees, he moodily envisioned the scene in store for him.

  He could just see Penelope’s face when she opened the door. Her expression would perfectly reflect her shock at finding him there, an expression that would promptly be replaced by one of displeasure when he conveyed the news of Miles’s delay. When he reminded her of their latest bargain and insisted that she honor it, she would hem and haw and do her damnedest to renege.

  But as Penelope Parrish would soon learn, her damnedest wasn’t good enough. Not when it came to a battle of wills with him. And especially not after all the trouble he’d gone to to assure himself this opportunity to wage his assault on her seemingly impenetrable wall of secrets.

  Which brought him around to another problem: considering her less than charitable opinion of him, how was he going to get her to honor their latest deal without alienating her in the process? In order for him to solve the mystery of her presence at the Shakespeare, he would first have to lull her into lowering her defenses enough for her to let slip a clue or two as to what had led her to her current situation. And he knew damn well that if he angered her by highhandedly demanding that she hold to their bargain, she would probably shut him out completely.

  Gritting his teeth, as much out of frustration as in anticipation of pain, he sat back down. The burning in his abused flesh resumed with a fiery vengeance. Stoically ignoring his impulse to yelp and jump out of the water, he sat still, waiting for the unpleasant sensation to subside. When it had faded to a tolerable tingle, he picked up his bar of sandalwood soap.

  As he rubbed it between his palms, working up a fragrant lather, he returned to the problem of Penelope and their bargain. So how was he going to get her to honor their deal without appearing arrogant or using coercive tactics?

  Unbidden, Granny Dowd’s crude colloquialism intruded into his thoughts: Nothin’ like a heap of bull manure to fertilize a lady’s regard and get her fondness growin’.

  His hand stilled in the act of scrubbing his chest. Granny’s advice just might be the key to unlock Penelope’s Pandora’s box of secrets. Absently he lifted his arm and scrubbed the area beneath it. He knew from experience that flattery and pretty phrases did go a long way toward winning a woman’s trust.

  But would it work? He transferred the slippery bar of soap from his right hand to his left. Would honeyed words be enough to soften Penelope’s heart and melt her resistance?

  Making a disgusted noise deep in his throat, he raised his right arm and washed his armpit. Perhaps under any other circumstances it might work. But considering the unqualified success of his ploy to make her hate and distrust him, he figured that he now had approximately as much chance as a snowman had in hell of winning her over that easily.

  So what was he going to do? Growling a string of foul oaths, he flung the soap into the water. His dangerous infatuation aside, by virtue of his friendship with Jake he truly did have a responsibility to see to her welfare. And right now she bore all the earmarks of being in trouble. Big trouble. How else could you explain the way she dodged his questions and looked on the verge of tears every time she was pressed for an answer?

  And what about her terror of Adele du Charme? He hadn’t missed the way she had trembled when the woman discovered them on the stairs, nor had he been blind to the panic in her eyes when he’d threatened to include her in his questioning.

  And then there was the fact that she, Penelope Parrish, one of opera’s greatest singers, was performing at the Shakespeare and under an assumed name, no less. Add it all up, and it equaled trouble, trouble from which he felt bound to rescue her. Yet to do so, he had to make her trust him enough to turn to him for help. Which brought him back to where he had started.

  Scowling at his dilemma, Seth fished the soap from the water and began scouring his legs. After several moments of drawing a blank, he reconsidered Granny’s advice.

  Granted, it wouldn’t be easy. But perhaps with a little ingenuity and a lot of patience, he just might be able to pull it off. After all, didn
’t he know Penelope better than anyone else? Didn’t he know what touched her heart and made her smile? Most important of all, hadn’t he been the one to introduce her to the pleasures of womanhood? That alone gave them a special bond.

  His hands stilled on his foamy leg as he considered the consequences of his actions. What if it actually worked? What if, by some misguided miracle, he was able to recapture her affection and trust to the extent that she took him into her confidence? What then? After rescuing her from whatever predicament had brought her here, would he simply tip his hat and walk out of her life, breaking her heart—and his—all over again?

  Mulling over his new and troubling dilemma, he leaned back against the tub’s backrest and bent his knee to his chest to wash his foot. Well, there was only one way to keep from hurting her again, and that was to make sure their new relationship didn’t transcend beyond the bounds of platonic friendship.

  His conscience guffawed at that notion. Do you honestly think that you’ve got the strength to resist Penelope’s charms? Why not just leave well enough alone? After all, she did promise to accompany you to San Francisco in six weeks’ time.

  True. But if the nature of her trouble had an element of danger attached to it, then it was entirely possible that she might come to harm before the six weeks were up.

  With that very real and frightening possibility in mind, Seth picked up the pitcher beside the tub and rose to his feet. His teeth chattering from chill, he poured the now-cool water over his shoulders and chest, rinsing away the last traces of soap.

  By the time he stood on the too small floor cloth, drying himself with an even smaller towel, he’d made the only decision he could comfortably make: in a manner that would hopefully spare both their hearts, he’d charm Penelope into revealing her secrets and rescue her from her trouble.

  Webs of Deception

  And first atonement

  Must be made

  For unforgiven wrong—

  —Tristan und Isolde

  Chapter 12

  Miles was late.

  Penelope ceased her agitated pacing and plopped down on the faded sofa, sighing her exasperation as she dumped her bonnet onto her lap. She’d been waiting in the shabby boardinghouse parlor for almost a half hour, and her patience was at an end.

  Muttering several unflattering adjectives as to the actor’s parentage, she fretfully toyed with her bonnet. Blasted man! Where was he anyway? He knew she needed to arrive at the theater early on the evenings they performed The Matchmaking Fairy.

  The Matchmaking Fairy, a rather risqué fantasy piece, necessitated that she don a complex series of harnesses, which were in turn rigged to a pulley that lifted her into the air and sent her flying across the stage, treating the audience to a tantalizing view of her ankles and calves. The preparation was not only time-consuming, but physically uncomfortable as well.

  Restlessly Penelope twisted one of the forest green satin bonnet streamers around her index finger. If Miles didn’t arrive soon, she’d never make the nine o’clock curtain. Not that she cared if the drunken louts in the audience had to wait to ogle her legs; if she had her way they’d wait forever.

  No. What concerned her was the fine Adele would levy for her tardiness. There would be a fine, no doubt about it, even though the woman would know that the fault for her lateness lay entirely with Miles. Yet, as usual, she wouldn’t dare protest out of fear that Adele would deny her her visit with Tommy tomorrow. And what was the loss of a few dollars compared to the priceless joy of spending time with her baby? Of course, if she was too late, the penalty might very well be the forefeiture of the visit altogether. And that was one punishment she wouldn’t risk.

  That thought was enough to make her glance nervously at the clock. It was ten after seven. If Miles didn’t arrive within the next five minutes, she would be forced to walk the short distance to the theater by herself … not a thought she found comforting.

  While calm enough during the day, by night the streets of Denver was overrun by scores of cowboys, sodbusters, miners, and farmers, all in town for a bacchanal evening of drinking, gambling, and female companionship. That being the case, any woman caught on the streets unescorted was likely to be perceived as fair game, and consequently treated as such. Especially if the woman happened to be an actress such as herself.

  But what choice did she have? A tendril of dread snaked down Penelope’s spine as she admitted that she had none. Bertram and Effie had left for the variety hall over an hour ago; Bertram being eager to get to the saloon for his customary preperformance shifter of brandy, and Effie needing the extra time to experiment with some new hair-enhancing treatment.

  Heaving a sigh of defeat, she glanced down at the bonnet streamer, which in the course of her mindless fidgeting had become tangled around her index finger. As she attempted to right the mess, she mentally cursed Miles’s unreliability. Though the actor was frequently late—for a promising poker hand, a fine bottle of liquor, or a particularly accommodating whore always took precedence over punctuality—this latest display of irresponsibility went beyond the bounds of tolerable behavior.

  Mumbling an unladylike expletive, she gave the ribbon a vicious twist, smiling as she visualized Miles’s neck in place of the streamer. She succeeded only in further tightening the knot.

  As she sat clumsily trying to extract her finger from its satin snare, the clock announced a quarter after the hour. Snorting her frustration, she marched toward the front door, shaking her hand as she went in a frantic attempt to dislodge her still-trapped finger. As she paused in the tiny entry hall to claw at the recalcitrant streamer, there was a rap at the door.

  Miles, at last. With the bonnet still dangling from her index finger, she yanked the door open, berating, “It’s about time! Do you know how late—” The words died on her lips when she saw who it was. It was Seth Tyler. A resplendently garbed, impossibly handsome Seth, who was lounging against the doorjamb with one hand behind his back and his sensuous mouth tilted into the crooked grin she always found so disarming.

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured, seizing her right hand and lifting it to his lips. Gallantly refraining from commenting on the hat hanging cockeyed from her finger, he pressed a kiss to her palm. As he released her, he explained, “I would have been here at seven sharp, but I had a devil of a time finding these.”

  With a courtly flourish, he pulled a beribboned nosegay of pink roses, blue columbine, yellow marigolds, and white daisies from behind his back. Peering at her from beneath his thick sweep of lowered eyelashes, he pleaded, “Forgive me?” Then his lips curved into a repentant smile that she found every bit as endearing as his previous grin.

  Staring at him and his bouquet with as much amazement as if he were wearing a ruffled skirt and dancing the cancan, Penelope sputtered, “W-what are you doing here?”

  “You’ve forgotten?” He clasped the flowers to his heart and sighed with dramatic effect. “You wound me!”

  She frowned at his flirtatious response. Whatever had gotten into him? If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was wooing her. She shot him a wary look.

  He flashed her a very wide, very alluring smile.

  Her heart missed a beat. He hadn’t smiled at her like that since the night at Delmonico’s two and a half years earlier when they had celebrated the three-month anniversary of their engagement. As it turned out, it had been their last romantic night together.

  Seth had been at his most charming that evening, playfully challenging her to a contest to see who could eat the most oysters and drink the most champagne. After devouring thirty-nine oysters and drinking three bottles of fine champagne, they were both too full to move and completely—

  “Seth Tyler! Are you drunk?” Penelope leaned forward and sniffed his breath suspiciously.

  He exhaled, bathing her lips in the warmth of his breath. “Sure I am,” he purred. “I’m drunk off your beauty … intoxicated by your sweetness, and”—his mouth was so close, she could feel his l
ips move against hers ever so slightly as he finished—“I’m tipsy with the pleasure from your company.”

  Their sudden intimacy caught Penelope completely off guard, leaving her powerless to do more than just stare into his eyes. She’d always heard that the eyes were the mirror to the soul, and Seth’s beautiful, chameleonlike eyes were proof that the saying was more than just empty words.

  For instance, when they were soft sage green, rimmed in chocolate brown with a sunburst-like star of gold surrounding his pupils, she knew he was happy. On those rare occasions when his irises were stormy-gray edged in charcoal and speckled with mossy green, she tread lightly, for experience had taught her that he was displeased. And when they were dark, as they were now, indeterminate in hue, yet burning with sultry topaz fire, they bespoke of simmering passion and promised ecstasy.

  Passion? Ecstasy? She stumbled back in stunned disbelief, clumsily catching her heel in her hem. She swayed perilously and would have tumbled backward had Seth not whipped his arm around her to steady her.

  Crushing her against his chest, he stared down into her flushed face, drawling, “Sure you’re not the tipsy one? Your face is awfully red, and you seem a little unsteady.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” she snapped, squirming from his embrace. “I tripped over my skirts, that’s all.” When she’d put several feet between them, she braced her hands on her hips and gritted out, “Now, why don’t you stop babbling nonsense and tell me what you want. I’m terribly late for the theater.” Tapping her foot impatiently, she folded her arms across her chest and stared at him with ill-concealed annoyance, an effect that was completely ruined by the frilly hat dangling from her finger.

  Smiling faintly, he shifted his gaze from the bonnet to her glowering face. “I said I’d be here at seven to walk you to the variety hall, and”—he spread his arms wide—“here I am.”

  “I told you that Miles always escorts me.” Without thinking, she shook her finger at him for emphasis … her right index finger to be exact … smacking him in the chest with the attached bonnet.