Tomorrow's Dreams (24 page)

“I'll be right there,” Seth hollered back, not taking his gaze off Penelope's face. She looked on the verge of tears. Feeling like an ogre for having caused her distress, he beckoned her to his side.

Looking as if she were going to her death, she complied.

He reached over and tugged the dressing gown from her arms. “I'll get the door. You select something for me to wear.”

The radiance of her answering smile made Seth's heart contract with longing. It was a real smile, the kind she'd given him during their courtship and engagement. The impact of it was like a powerful blow to his midsection, leaving him breathless and aching inside. Uttering her name in a strangled whisper, he impulsively seized her arm and drew her nearer.

“Seth?” she murmured.

Desperately clutching at the threadbare strings of his composure, he reached out and drew her red calico monstrosity of a bonnet back up on her head. “Your hat,” he said, giving silent thanks for the counterfeit calm of his voice.

As he tugged the wide brim around her face, his fingertips accidently grazed the line of her high cheekbone. Her skin was every bit as warm and satiny-smooth as he remembered, and he was unable to fight the urge to cup her cheek in his palm.

Apparently Penelope felt the magic of their closeness as well, for she sighed and nuzzled her cheek against his hand. It was an act of such heartbreaking tenderness that it took the final strand of Seth's willpower not to draw her into his embrace and promise to love her forever.

But, of course, for them there could be no forever.

Wracked with a wrenching sense of loss, Seth drew his now trembling hand from her face and pointed to the wardrobe. “Go,” he commanded in a voice that was little more than a croak.

After gracing him with another of her soul-searing smiles, Penelope hurried across the room to do his bidding. Grappling to regain his emotional equilibrium, Seth slipped from the bed and shrugged on his dressing gown. With his raw backside smarting like the stings from a hundred bees, he limped to the door.

As he grasped the polished brass knob, he paused to glance over to where Penelope stood rummaging through his clothes. Even garbed in a shapeless wrapper, her figure was too alluring by far. A beleaguered groan escaped his lips. Apparently there were some curves no amount of fabric could conceal.

Scowling, he hissed, “Stoop!”

She looked at him as if he'd completely lost his mind.

Bowing at the waist, he repeated, “Stoop!”

Her expression mystified, she did what looked like an imitation of a hunchback.

“Perfect. Now stay that way.” With that edict Seth opened the door. “Sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen,” he apologized, stepping to one side as he ushered the porter and his entourage into the room. “Please put the tub over there.” He indicated a place at the end of the room opposite from where Penelope stood.

Grunting under the weight of their burden, the porter and a bellboy lugged the sizable tin bathtub over to the designated spot, closely followed by three men-of-all-work hauling buckets of steaming water. Bringing up the rear of the procession was a waiter bearing a tray with Seth's coffee and ginger biscuits.

After setting the food on a small table by the window, the waiter lingered until the bellboy had finished positioning the tub. Then the two men departed the room together.

Under the crisp direction of the porter, the remaining men prepared Seth's bath. Unfortunately the activity didn't prevent them from noticing Penelope, and they spent as much time gawking in her direction as they did tending to their duties.

Deciding it best to nip the men's curiosity in the bud, Seth casually asked, “I assume you all know Mrs. Grubber?”

The porter straightened up. “Can't say I do.” He nodded courteously at the figure by the wardrobe. “Pleasure, ma'am.”

Seth saw Penelope stiffen, but before she could respond, he said, “Oh, she can't hear you. She's almost completely deaf. You have to get right up to her and shout if you want to talk to her.” He shrugged. “Sometimes she hears you.”

“So what's she doin' here?” ventured a young man with spiky black hair and a missing front tooth.

“S-sh,” hissed the porter, fixing the man with a reproving glare. “It's not your place to question the guests.”

“It's all right,” Seth reassured him. “Mrs. Grubber will be working for me while I'm in town, so it's just as well that I explain her presence to you.”

“Work?” A blond man with a bristly orange mustache scratched his head. “What good is a deaf female?”

Seth glanced over at Penelope, who had pulled out one of his shirts and was studying it with the intensity of a student cramming for a midterm exam. Inclining his head in her direction, he lied, “The woman works absolute magic with starch and an iron. My shirts have never looked so good. My trousers are always perfectly pressed, and she never leaves so much as a speck of lint on my coats. She's also handy with a razor on those mornings when I'm too lazy or too hungover to shave myself.”

“Oh, I get it,” chortled the fourth man, rubbing the top of his bald pate as if forming a thought made it ache. “She's sorta like a gentleman's gentleman, only she's a lady. Right?”

Seth winked. “Exactly.”

The man with the orange mustache looked unconvinced. “Her being deaf and all, how do you give her orders?”

“She doesn't need direction when it comes to seeing to a man's needs. She's been married for thirty-six years and has raised nine sons,” Seth explained. “In truth, she takes such good care of me that I'm beginning view her as a second mother.”

The four men nodded their understanding as they collected the now empty buckets.

“However,” Seth continued. “For all her motherly good intentions, she can be a bit dangerous.”

The porter looked up. “Dangerous, sir?”

“Yes. Being deaf has made the poor dear a bit—uh—high-strung. She always carries a loaded pistol in her pocket and has developed a rather dangerous habit of shooting anyone or anything that happens to sneak up on her. Since she can't hear much, she's real easy to startle.”

The man with the orange mustache made a gobbling sound, while the other two workers exchanged worried glances. Clearing his throat, the porter inquired, “So what should we do?”

Bending down to test the water temperature with his finger, Seth advised, “Stay out of her way. You shouldn't have any problem avoiding her. She arrives every morning at seven sharp and comes straight up to my room. Just make sure you let everyone else know that she's not to be stopped or in any way accosted.”

“But how will they know who she is?” asked the man with the missing front tooth.

Seth straightened back up to his full height, all six feet two inches of it, to take a long look at Penelope. After considering a moment, he replied, “Tell everyone that she always wears a red bonnet that completely hides her face. She's got a tattoo on her cheek, and she's touchy about people staring at it.”

“Tattoo?” choked the orange-mustached man.

“She was captured by the Indians when she was young, and they gave it to her, but we'll save that story for another day.”

Casting a look of mock concern at Penelope's heaving shoulders, Seth intoned, “Looks like Mrs. Grubber is getting kind of nervous. Maybe you gentlemen ought to leave now.”

That observation was enough to send the four men sidling toward the door. Just as they piled out into the hallway, Seth stopped them. “Gentlemen?”

They froze.

“I'll have Mrs. Grubber ring the bell three times before she leaves my room in the morning. If you wait a few minutes, it should be safe to retrieve the tub. Just don't come up unless you hear the three rings, or unless I direct you otherwise.”

Bobbing their heads like loosely stuffed scarecrows in a tornado, the men hurried from the room.

As the door closed behind them, Penelope spun around to face Seth, her whole body convulsing with laughter. “A tattoo? Deaf? Really, Seth! However do you come up with those tales?”

Seth grinned his cockeyed grin. “Just talented, I guess.”

She rolled her eyes toward the heavens. “Outrageous is more like it. You made me sound so dangerous that those poor men will run for cover every time they catch sight of a red bonnet.” It was then that comprehension of what he'd done hit home. “Why, Seth Tyler! You spun that wicked story to protect me! You did it to insure my anonymity.”

Seth merely shrugged and tested the bathwater again. “Will you bring me my soap from the dressing table?”

Penelope found herself smiling as she hastened to do his bidding. For all that he was obviously trying to deny it, it was apparent that his heart was softening toward her. Why else would he have done what he just did? As for her own heart, well, as much as she'd been desperately trying to ignore it, it had been telling her that Seth Tyler was the only man for her.

Her smile faded as she stared down at the clutter of ebony-backed brushes and masculine grooming articles scattered across the marble tabletop before her. Seth may be the man for her, but he'd made it abundantly clear that she wasn't the woman for him. He no longer viewed her as anything but a friend.

Or did he? Her hand froze in the act of picking up his bar of soap. Surely a man didn't dream sensual dreams about a woman who was just a friend? He didn't cry her name in his sleep in a voice thick with desire. And he certainly wouldn't look at a mere friend with passion blazing in his eyes the way Seth had done just now as he'd cradled her cheek in his hand.

Just remembering the smoldering topaz fire in Seth's eyes was enough to fill Penelope with a sunlike glow of warmth. He still wanted her, that much was apparent.

Want
. Her inner glow dimmed a fraction. He wanted her, yes. But wanting a woman was a far cry from loving her.

But want is a start in the right direction
, she reminded herself with halfhearted optimism.

Behind her, there was the splash of water, followed by a low groan as Seth lowered himself into the bathtub. With faint embers of hope stirring in her breast, Penelope scooped the soap from its dish with one hand, while pushing the unflattering bonnet from her head with the other, then turned to face the man whose love she was now determined to regain.

He wanted her. Perhaps with a little coaxing the seeds of his physical desire might be nurtured to grow into something deeper, more lasting. Perhaps someday his feelings would mature into love. Whatever the outcome, she was going to do everything in her power to cultivate his more tender emotions.

With that vow, she approached Seth. He sat huddled in the tub with his knees drawn up to his chin, his every muscle rigid with tension. Beneath the tangled veil of his hair, she could see that his eyes were screwed closed and that his face was as contorted as if he were enthroned on a bed of hot coals.

Which was exactly how the steaming water felt against Seth's raw backside, like red-hot coals. If Penelope hadn't been in the room, he'd have bolted from the tub and foregone his bath in favor of a thorough sponging at the washbasin. But, of course, he wasn't about to relinquish his manly pride in her presence.

Penelope dropped to her knees next to the tub. “Seth? What's wrong?” she asked, gently tucking his hair behind his ears.

By now the stinging was beginning to subsided enough for him to honestly croak, “I'm fine. Just sore from riding.”

Her face flamed the vermillion of a prairie sunset. “Uh … I'm sure it h-hurts.” She stared at the soap in her hands.

Seth smiled, thinking how charming she looked in her embarrassment. “Yes, but I'll live to ride another day.”

When she remained silent, fretfully stabbing at his soap with her thumbnail, he joked, “Unless, of course, I shrivel into a prune waiting for you to give me my soap.”

Her head flew up and her cheeks deepened to a particularly flattering shade of ruby. “Oh, sorry.” She hastily deposited the bar into his outstretched palm. Looking everywhere but at him, she rose, asking, “I was wondering what you had planned today. I mean, what kind of clothing will you need? Will you be riding—”

“Not riding,” Seth groaned. “I'll be walking over to the saloon and spending the day there going over accounts.” There was a swish of water, then, “How about you? What are your plans?”

Penelope remained silent, grappling for an answer. It was her son's second birthday, and she planned to spend the afternoon with him. Miles was to meet her at the Shakespeare at eleven to take her to wherever the Skolfields were hiding the baby.

“Pen?”

She glanced back at Seth. Big mistake. As soon as her gaze touched his body, she was captivated. He was every bit as glorious as she'd imagined he'd be with his tawny skin glistening with soap and water. Just looking at him made her ache to glide her palms across the slick, sculpted plane of his chest and down the muscular contours of his flat belly.

Fighting for composure and stalling for time, she mumbled, “Is that your question for the day?”

Grinning, he lifted one long leg and began to lather his calf. “Why not? It's as good as any question, I suppose.”

Distracted by the sight of his foamy hands sliding from his well-formed calf up to his strong thigh, she inadvertently spilled the truth, “I'm going to see the Skolfields.” She could have bitten off her tongue the moment the words were out.

“The Skolfields?” His hand paused on his thigh.

Damn. Damn. Damn! Now what?

What choice did she have but to brazen it out? Putting on a casual mien, she explained, “Sam and Minerva Skolfield. They're acquaintances of Adele's. They've invited Miles and me to have dinner with them.” Well, it wasn't a complete lie. The Skolfields were acquaintances of Adele's, and Minerva would feed them.

“And where do the Skolfields live?” Seth had resumed washing and was now scrubbing his groin.