Tomorrow's Dreams (28 page)

At first the woman's demands for silence were small, a hundred dollars here, fifty dollars there. But over the years her demands grew, taking the Skolfields to the brink of bankruptcy.

Yet, no matter how devastating the price, Sam and Minerva always paid. They were willing to do anything to keep Adele from destroying their son's future … even be party to kidnapping.

After hearing the story, Penelope had tried to hate the Skolfields, for weren't they using her son to insure their own son's future? Yet, try as she might, she couldn't find it in her heart to condemn them. After all, who was she to fault parents for loving and wanting to protect their child? If their situations were reversed, wouldn't she do the same for Tommy?

Guilt stabbed at Penelope's conscience as she looked down at her baby, who was still preoccupied with his new rattle. What would happen to the Skolfields when One-eyed Caleb stole Tommy from their care? Would Adele be infuriated enough to ruin Alexander's life as she had threatened?

It was a possibility that Penelope found unsettling. After all, Sam and Minerva had not only looked after Tommy, they had taken him into their hearts and nursed him through his frequent illnesses as tenderly as if he'd been their own. Didn't she owe them some consideration for that?

Torn apart by conflicting emotions, yet knowing that she must remain resolved for Tommy's sake, she let her gaze stray to where Minerva sat lost in her own thoughts. She'd become fond of the Skolfields. They were good people who, like herself, were simply trying to make the best of a terrible situation.

They were also creditors to whom she owed a debt of gratitude. But tragically, the price of repayment was one she couldn't afford. Not when the price might cost her son his life.

Surrender, My Heart

Ah, yes, there is no defying,

A love beyond denying—

For love must have its way!

—
Don Giovanni

Chapter 16

Penelope was full. Corset-busting, I-couldn't-swallow-another-crumb-if-my-life-depended-on-it full. The kind of full she hadn't been since she was six and had eaten an entire pan of gingerbread she'd found cooling on the kitchen windowsill.

Groaning, she erased the heartburning incident from her mind. Recalling it now only deepened her overstuffed misery.

Unfortunately clearing her mind left it free to dwell on other matters, namely her corset. She gave the binding undergarment a surreptitious tug through her bodice. The blasted stays were poking into her distended belly with a vengeance that made her feel like a harpooned whale.

Certain she'd belch if she didn't relieve the pressure at once, she cautiously eased back until she leaned half reclining against a cottonwood tree. Mercifully her new position did much to ease the potentially disastrous constriction. Too relieved to care that she was crushing her bustle, she lay in glutted languor marveling anew that she had been allowed to come on this picnic.

Earlier that day, Seth had complained to Adele that Penelope was looking peaked and had demanded that she be allowed some leisure, namely a picnic. After a rather heated discussion during which Seth slyly pointed out that the company would be ruined and thus useless in repaying Miles's debt if Penelope should fall ill, the woman had grudgingly agreed.

Sighing her contentment, Penelope drowsily admired her surroundings. The site Seth had selected for their hard-won picnic was unrivaled in beauty by any place she'd ever dined. It was like a little piece of heaven on earth.

As far as the eye could see, the arms of the Platte River sparkled between islands and banks edged with copses of autumn-flamed foliage. The small grove of cottonwoods where they dined was carpeted with leaves in vivid shades of orange, gold, and scarlet, hues that were echoed in the canopy of branches overheard. Enhancing nature's ambiance were the gurgling serenade of the river and the smoky aroma of fall.

Seth, who sat beside her on the faded crazy quilt, his long legs crossed Indian style before him, seemed less enamored with his surroundings than with the food. Right now he was practically inhaling the last of the Saratoga potatoes. When he noticed her watching him, he picked up a cranberry tart and waved it temptingly beneath her nose. “Last one. Want it?”

Just the sight of the buttery pastry oozing with syrupy red fruit almost made her gag. Motioning it away with the same aversion she'd have shown a plate of the infamous lamb fries, she groaned, “I can't eat another bite. I'm stuffed.” She was about to add that she doubted if she'd be able to eat for the next year when an obstreperous belch slipped out.

Mortified, she slapped her hand over her mouth, her face burning with shame. She'd wanted so badly to impress Seth, to advance in her stratagem to recapture his heart, and here she was making noises reminiscent of a barnyard scuffle.

Seth merely chuckled and plopped the rejected tart down on his own plate. Grinning good-naturedly, he teased, “I always say that there's nothing more enticing than a woman with a healthy appreciation for food. Especially one who knows how to express it with such eloquence.”

Despite her humiliation, Penelope smiled. Leave it to Seth to make light of what most men would view as an unpardonable act of vulgarity.
But then
, she reminded herself as she watched him make short work of the remaining tart,
he isn't like most men
.

Unlike the other men she knew, Seth had never felt it necessary to adhere to the rigid dictates of society. Instead he viewed them only as loose guidelines to be bent, broken, or eliminated to suit his own purposes. As her sister-in-law had pointed out more than once, Seth Tyler was a charming renegade, always refreshingly candid and delightfully witty.

Oddly enough, his flaunting of convention hadn't made him an outcast, as one would expect. It had endeared him to hostesses, and gained him the respect of powerful men who openly admired his daring. In truth, he was more received than anyone else she knew.

Right now, society's darling was licking his fingers with gusto. Smiling at his expression of gastronomic ecstasy, she teased, “It's a wonder you're not as big as a barn the way you eat.”

He laughed at that. “Never fear, Princess. I'm hardly in danger of becoming one of those men who's bigger around than he is tall. In truth, if I didn't eat as much as I did, I'd be as skinny as an over-whittled broomstick.”

She eyed his muscular physique dubiously. “You? Skinny?”

“As a string bean,” he confirmed blithely. “You should have seen me when I was a youth. I was all gangly arms and legs with a bony backside and ribs to match.”

Penelope stared at Seth, trying to visualize him as a spindly boy. Odd, but she'd never stopped to wonder what kind of child, or even youth, he'd been. In truth, she'd never considered the fact that he'd ever been anything other than what he was now: a strong, fiercely independent man who had the world by its tail. And since he'd never brought up the subject of his childhood, or willingly volunteered information about his life prior to his partnership with her brother, it had never seemed important.

But suddenly it seemed very important indeed. His waving that tidbit of information in front of her was like waving a meaty bone in front of a dog's nose: it made her crave more.

She watched in silence as he finished the tart. The question was, how should she broach the subject of his past? Even when their relationship had been at its closest, he'd been an intensely private person.

Granted, he'd told her the little, superficial things about himself. Like that his favorite color was red, his favorite food was pineapple ice-cream pudding, and that he particularly enjoyed naughty stories. Yet what did she really know about him?

She searched her mind for an answer. She knew that he was born in New York and had spent his childhood in Massachusetts; a childhood that, if his unpolished manners and poor grammar when she'd first met him were any indicator, appeared to have been less than privileged. But of his family she knew nothing.

The single time she'd asked him about them, he'd turned as taciturn as a Southerner on the topic of the War Between the States, so she'd assumed they were dead and had never asked again.

But what of the other details? The seemingly unimportant ones that would give her a picture of who he'd been? Like who was his boyhood best friend, what games had he liked best, and had he had a pet? Those were things she'd either never bothered to ask, or that he'd avoided telling her by guiding every conversation to the subject nearest and dearest to her heart … herself.

She grimaced at the remembrance of her own selfishness. How had he stood her? Looking back, it was a wonder that she'd been able to tolerate herself.

She eyed him speculatively as he set aside the plate and lay back upon the quilt with a satiated grunt. The early afternoon sun speckled through the barren gaps left by the fallen leaves, burnishing his outspread hair until it gleamed like fire-lit gold. His eyes were closed, and he looked supremely contented as he bathed his face in a ray of sunshine.

Suddenly determined to learn more about the enigmatic man before her, she asked, “Tell me about your childhood.”

He lay very still, and for an instant she wondered if he slept. But then he opened his eyes and looked at her. “Why?”

She shrugged as casually as she could manage. “It's just that we agreed to be friends, and, well, friends share information about themselves.”

“Do they?” His gaze bore into hers. “I haven't noticed you being any too eager to share information with me lately.”

She plucked at the ruche trimming on her skirt, unnerved by the intensity of his stare. “That's because you already know everything about me. As you might recall, I was never shy about talking about myself during our courtship. In fact, I distinctly remember myself as being a conceited little chatterbox. I don't know how you stood me.” Her voice rang with self-condemnation.

A tiny smile danced on his lips. “I enjoyed your chattering. I thought it charming. You were so full of enthusiasm, so excited about your career on the stage, and rightfully so, I might add.”

She shook her head ruefully. “That gave me no right to be so selfish. I should have paid more attention to you and your desires. I should have been thoughtful enough to ask you what was happening in your life and what it had been like before we met. We were engaged, for pity's sake. I should have at least known that my husband-to-be was a skinny youth.”

At that last remark his gaze slid from hers. She followed it until it came to rest on an object that she recognized as his cigar case. Strange, she'd been so intent on making her clumsy apology, that she hadn't even seen him pull it from his pocket.

Caressing the gleaming silver case in a way that made Penelope envy it, he murmured, “Perhaps you never found out because I didn't want you to know. Perhaps …” His voice faltered. When, after taking a deep breath, he continued, it carried a note of uncertainty she'd never before heard. “Perhaps I was afraid that you wouldn't marry me if you knew about me.”

“Your being skinny wouldn't have made any difference,” she scolded him lightly. “Nor would anything else you could have told me. I loved you for the man you are, not for who you once were. To me, you were the most perfect man in the world. Perhaps I should have told you so more often.”

He lifted the cigar case to examine it closer. “You could have complimented me a hundred times a day; it wouldn't have made any difference. I still wouldn't have felt worthy of you. You were so intelligent, beautiful, talented, and despite your protests to the contrary, loving, that I was ashamed to tell you about myself.” By the strain in his voice, it was apparent that that confession had cost him a great deal.

Aching to touch him, to tell him that she would love him no matter how sordid his past, yet sensing that he'd see her gesture as unwelcome pity, she suggested, “Then, why don't you tell me now? Since we're no longer engaged, you have nothing to lose.”

“Nothing except your respect,” he rejoined quietly.

His admission sent an odd thrill racing down her spine. That he cared what she thought of him was unexpected, yet welcome, news. Giving him her warmest smile, she hastened to reassure him, “There's no one in this world I respect more than you, and there's nothing you can tell me that will change my mind.”

He smiled back, gently and with a sweetness that sent her pulse racing. “In that case, I'll tell you anything you want to know. But”—he rolled over and sat up—“not now. I promised Adele I'd help you rehearse the new play for tonight, and unless you want our circus tickets to go to waste, we'd best get started.”

“Circus tickets!” Penelope threw herself at him to give him a delighted hug. “Why, you darling—darling!—wonderful man! I saw the cavalcade come through town this morning, and I wanted to see the show so badly, I thought I'd die. I never imagined …” She broke off to give him another squeeze.

Seth returned her hug, chuckling. “You made the circus sound so exciting the other day, that I decided I should see it for myself. And who better to show me the wonders than you?”

She drew back to stare at him in surprise. “This will be your first circus? Your parents never took you?”

His smile faded. “Yes and no, respectively. And I won't be going this time, either, if we don't rehearse your lines.” With that curt reminder, he pulled the script from the picnic hamper and handed it to her. “Here. Show me where you want to start.”

She thumbed through the pages until she came to the scene where her character, Talutah, a lovelorn Indian maiden, has wandered to the edge of the camp, mooning over Roscoe, her frontiersman lover. It was, in effect, the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet minus the balcony. It was the scene she hated most, for it required her to kiss Miles several times.