Tomorrow's Dreams (32 page)

It wasn't that he, with his vivid imagination, couldn't come up with a defense. He could, a dozen of them, and believable ones at that. What he couldn't do was force the words past his lips.

Mutely, Seth cursed himself for a weak-willed fool. Once again his heart was overruling his head, and the damn thing was refusing to let him pass this episode off as a strange accident. Worse yet, it was urging him to tell the truth, to confess the tender feelings that had induced him to act as he did.

But, of course, he couldn't allow himself to do that, no matter how he was tempted. He'd seen the way Penelope looked at him of late, so soft and full of yearning, and he refused to hurt her again by giving her false hope for their future together.

As he stared bleakly at his sodden trousers, wondering what the hell he was going to do, he heard the sound of flesh moving through water and then a hand appeared before his face.

“Would you help me up?” Penelope asked, her voice as matter-of-fact as if she were requesting that he fetch her a shawl. “I'm stiff from sleeping in the tub and doubt I can rise by myself.”

Seth glanced at her composed face, stunned. He'd expected her to heap recriminations on his head, or at the very least shield her breasts with her arms and stare at him as if he were a rowdy set on ravishing her.

Instead she sat as unperturbed as if being naked in his presence was an everyday event, casually requesting assistance; assistance that invited him to touch her delectable body. He sucked in a hissing breath between his teeth. He'd have preferred the recriminations. A couple of indignant shrieks and a few shaming rebukes would have done wonders to diminish his obstinate lust, which, despite his mortification, still seared his loins.

“Please?” She leaned forward and held out her arms in a way that displayed her breasts in all their tantalizing glory.

Seth mumbled something, he wasn't sure what, and forced his gaze up to her face. That move didn't do a thing to ease the suddenly too tight fit of his trousers. Though her expression was sweetly pleading, her eyes were luminous with desire.

“The water's terribly cold. I'm afraid I'll take a chill if I sit here much longer. Look”—she nodded down at her chest, an area he was diligently trying to ignore—“I've got goose-flesh.”

He'd already behaved like a lecher, and he wasn't about to add insult to injury by acting like a cad. And he would be a cad if he denied her help. Resigning himself to torment worse than the fires of hell, Seth clamped his hands around her upper arms and helped her up. The process went smoothly, with Seth avoiding coming in contact with anything more stimulating than her arms.

Just as she lifted her leg to step from the tub, she slipped and he was forced to whip his arms around her torso to keep her from falling. With a startled cry, she grabbed on to his shoulders and clung to him as if for dear life.

The feel of her body, naked and yielding, crushed against his was almost more than Seth could bear. Groaning, he pushed her away to hold her at arm's length.

Gluing his gaze to the floor, he murmured hoarsely, “I've got you. You can step out now.” As soon as her feet entered his line of vision, he released her and poised himself for a hasty retreat. As he turned to flee, she exclaimed, “Oh, dear!”

Her voice was so full of distress that he instinctively glanced back to see what was wrong. He could have kicked himself.

He had thought Penelope's figure stunning when he'd gawked at it in the tub, but seeing it now, upright and fully displayed to its best advantage, he saw that it was better than stunning. It was flawless, perfect in both shape and symmetry.

Her legs were long without being coltish, her rounded hips in perfect proportion with her generous bosom. Add those attributes to her wasp waist and you got a natural hourglass shape that most women had to pad and lace themselves to achieve.

Swallowing hard, he pried his gaze away from the alluring sight and somehow choked out, “What's wrong now?”

“I don't have a dry towel. I left the stack by the washstand when I poured the water for your shave.”

As fast as he could, considering his aching groin and constricting trousers, Seth hobbled from behind the screen, muttering, “I'll fetch them,” all the while sending up thanks for his long overdue deliverance. Wanting nothing more than to sit down and gather what was left of his composure, he grabbed a handful of towels and hastily dumped them over the top of the screen.

“Thank you, Seth,” Penelope called out in a dulcet tone.

He grunted and collapsed in the chair before his desk.

From behind the screen drifted the sounds of humming interspersed with the soft rasp of crisp linen being rubbed against flesh. Smiling at Penelope's musical selection, a bawdy drinking song called “Nellie's Naughty Night on the Town,” Seth opened the bottom drawer and removed his ledgers.

Abruptly the humming ceased. “Seth?”

“Hmm?”

“Have you been riding too much again?”

He glanced toward the screen, perplexed. “No. Why?”

“I noticed you were walking funny when you went to fetch the towels. Kind of like when your backside was blistered.”

Something in her voice piqued Seth's suspicion. She sounded almost amused, as if she'd noticed his disgraceful condition and was now baiting him about it. He let out a snort of disgust. Of course she'd noticed. She'd have had to have been blind not to, what with the snug fit of men's trousers these days.

So why the coy inquiry when the answer had been so apparent? His wariness deepened. After her blushing response to his reference to blue balls last Saturday, he knew for a fact that she understood about male arousal.

She was obviously up to something. Intrigued to find out what that something was, he replied in like coin, “Remember the condition we talked about after I kissed you last week?”

She peered around the screen at him, her expression as angelic as if she were quizzing her Sunday schoolteacher about the colors of Joseph's coat. “How can that be? We didn't kiss.”

“Believe me, Princess. We didn't have to kiss.”

She stared at him for a long moment, as if absorbing the news, then shook her head. “You poor man. It must be very inconvenient to get in that condition for no reason at all.”

“No reason?” he echoed. “A beautiful woman parades naked in front of me, and you say I have no reason to get aroused?”

“I didn't parade,” she retorted, almost flirtatiously.

“It isn't the parading part I find stimulating.”

“Then, I can't imagine what worked you into such a state.” She reached up and toyed with one of the long red ties dangling from her bonnet. “I'm certain it wasn't the sight of my naked body. As you pointed out to me in regard to your own body, it's not as if you're not familiar with it.”

“Just because I've seen your body in the shadows and touched you a few times doesn't mean that I no longer desire you. Good God! If anything, those memories make me want you more.”

Seth could have bitten off his tongue. He'd opened his mouth to issue playful flattery, not admit his feelings. Damnation! He should have known better than to have taken Penelope's intriguing bait. Now he was really on the hook. His squirming discomfort didn't ease any as he noted the blazing joy on her face.

Dropping the now twisted bonnet string, she clutched at the edge of the screen with both hands and softly exclaimed, “That's exactly how I felt the first morning I came to your room. You looked so handsome lying there naked, I wanted to touch you.”

She flushed pink and ducked her head. “In truth, I did touch you. That's why you awoke in the state you were in.” She peered up at him earnestly. “Do you think I'm terribly wicked?”

“No. I think you're terribly charming and beautiful,” he murmured, more thrilled than he had a right to be by her halting confession. “And I'm flattered that you find my body tempting enough to steal a caress. Any man would be.”

“But I've never been tempted to touch another man. Regardless of what you choose to believe about that incident in New York, there's never been anyone for me but you. I'm beginning to think there never will be.”

Seth opened his mouth to head off the conversation, to refuse to discuss Julian or New York, but then her gaze touched his and he was unable to utter the words. For there, reflected in depths of her brilliant eyes were the scars of her wounded soul; wounds inflicted by his cowardice and selfish pride.

Never in his life had Seth hated himself more than he did at that moment. How could he have been so cruel? So wrong? What kind of a man was he to so brutally hurt the woman he loved?

The answers were ones he knew too well: he hadn't been a man at all. He'd been the lowest of God's creatures, the most loathsome of life-forms. He'd been a spineless bastard willing to do anything, hurt anyone to save his own worthless pride.

Something inside him snapped, discharging a powerful stream of resolution through his chest. Well, he would be a man now. He would tell her the long overdue truth about New York, no matter how painful or how humiliating it was. He wouldn't hurt her again by rejecting her pleas of innocence with lies and refusals.

Drawing in a deep breath, Seth said what he should have said two and a half years earlier, “I know there was nothing between you and Julian. I always knew.”

She looked as stunned as if he'd struck her. “But … then why?” She made a helpless little hand gesture.

Dreading what he was about to do, yet at the same time oddly liberated by it, he walked over to a chair and patted its back in invitation. “Sit down, Princess, and I'll explain as best I can.”

She remained stock-still, her hands clutching the edge of the screen. “I can't come out. I'm not dressed.”

It was on the tip of Seth's tongue to remind her that she didn't have anything he hadn't seen before, but she looked so utterly miserable that he hadn't the heart. Instead he said, “I seem to remember leaving my dressing gown by the tub this morning. Why don't you put it on and come out. I'd prefer that we both be seated when I tell you what I have to say.”

“Is it really that terrible?” Her voice was every bit as desolate as her expression.

He nodded somberly. “Worse.”

She bobbed her head in return and disappeared behind the screen. After what felt like an eternity, she reappeared.

Despite the dread lying heavy on his heart, Seth smiled. Even with her small form swallowed up by the folds of his robe and her hair in untidy braids atop her head, Penelope somehow managed to look elegant.

When she'd settled in the chair, he pulled the matching ottoman directly in front of her and sat down. He was silent for several tense moments, looking everywhere but in her eyes, searching for a way to begin. At last Penelope took the lead.

“Why Seth?” she whispered, her voice raw with emotion. “Why did you do and say what you did? Was it because you no longer loved me and wanted to be rid of me? I know I was selfish—”

“No!” he interjected, appalled at her assumption that she was somehow responsible for his behavior. “Dear God, no. None of what happened was your fault. You were never anything but wonderful, and there was nothing I wanted more than to marry you.”

“I don't understand.”

Seth's gaze touched her troubled face briefly before he lowered his head to stare at his hands. Nervously scraping at his calloused palm with his thumbnail, he replied “No, but you will. And I suspect you'll hate me when you learn the truth.”

He heard Penelope shift in her chair, then felt her push his hair from his face and tuck it behind his ears. Cupping his cheek in her hand, she murmured, “I doubt if I could ever hate you, Seth. I've tried and failed so many times during the last two and a half years, that I'm beginning to think it impossible.”

“You haven't heard my story yet.”

“No. But I know you well enough to realize that you probably had a good reason for doing what you did, especially if you loved me as much as you profess,” she murmured, her gaze capturing his.

In that instant as Seth stared into Penelope's soft green eyes he saw not just the charming, spirited girl he so loved, but the warm, compassionate woman she'd become. It was that new maturity that gave him the courage to continue.

Gently drawing her hand from his cheek to clasp it in his, he quizzed, “Do you remember the last night we spent together? How I had to rise at dawn for an early-morning engagement?”

“Yes. It was a breakfast meeting, as I recall.” She smiled. “I remember you liked to conduct business over meals because everyone remained cordial so as not to risk indigestion. I also remember that you always saved your dinner appointments for me.”

“You could have had my breakfast and lunch appointments, too, if you'd but asked,” he replied, caressing her thumb with his.

Penelope's dimples peeked out at that declaration. “I was selfish, not stupid. I knew you had to attend to business during the day. I wanted to share your life, not run it.”

“Which proves my point that you were never selfish. A selfish woman would have demanded all my time.”

Her smile faded. “Then, why did you break our engagement?”

“Because of the news I received at my meeting that morning.” He paused to squeeze her hand, as much for his own reassurance as for hers. “My appointment that morning wasn't with a business associate, but with a Pinkerton agent. I'd hired the agency to try and find information about my parents.”

“Your parents?” Her brow furrowed. “I always assumed they were dead. You never spoke of them and whenever I mentioned them, you were as obtuse as a captured traitor.”

“I never spoke of them because I didn't know who they were.”

She looked positively baffled by that notion. “How could you not know who your parents were?”