Tomorrow's Dreams (38 page)

Louisa stiffened visibly, her eyes now little more than glittering slits. “Just by the asking of that question, sir, it's apparent that you already know the answer.”

“You're a very perceptive woman, Mrs. Vanderlyn. But then, such keenness is a Van Cortlandt family trait, as are intelligence, ruthlessness … and insanity.

She took the bait. “Just who are you?”

The trap snapped shut. “Most people call me Seth Tyler.” He paused for a significant beat. “You may call me son.”

“S-son?” The blood drained from her face, and for a moment Seth was certain she would faint. Instead she surprised him by leaning forward and almost reverently touching his trademark Van Cortlandt jaw. “Oh … how could I have been so blind? There is so much of your father about you.”

Seth yanked his face away, as infuriated by the tender longing in her voice as by her touch. Bent on ripping away her glowing mask of heartfelt welcome and exposing the malevolent face he knew lay beneath, he gritted out, “How that resemblance must pain you. Or is a cold-blooded killer like you capable of feeling such emotions as pain, shame, and remorse?”

“Killer!” she gasped, looking as taken aback as if he'd declared that he was Christ Almighty and had just risen from his tomb. “I-I don't understand.”

She was good, he'd give her that. So good that if he weren't familiar with her evil nature, he might have been fooled into believing her seemingly guileless protest of ignorance.

Unfortunately for her, he knew exactly what kind of monster she was. “Don't play coy with me—Mother,” he hissed, spitting out the maternal appellation as if it were a mouthful of poisoned wine. “I know all about you and how in your selfishness you ordered me, your unwanted bastard son, murdered at birth.”

To Seth's satisfaction, she turned a shade more ashen. “I—I never ordered you killed.” Her voice quavered with emotion. “That was my father's doing. He didn't want anything to ruin his plans to wed me to our neighbor. I didn't find out about his treachery until seventeen years later.”

She slipped from her chair to kneel at his knees. Reaching forward to grasp his arms in her trembling hands, she declared fervently, “I loved you from the very instant you were born. So much so that when I was told you had died several hours later, I went almost mad with grief. You were everything to me.”

Hating her all the more for saying what he'd once so desperately yearned to hear, and knowing that she lied, Seth roughly shook her hands away. “Keep your lies for someone who will believe them. They're not going to save you. I know the truth, and that truth gives me the right to destroy you.”

“But you don't know the truth!” she protested, latching on to his arms again as if in doing so she could also connect with his mind. “If you'll just listen—”

“I didn't come here tonight to listen to your false tales of motherly woe,” he interjected brutally. “No matter how creative and entertaining they may be. So save your breath.”

“Then, why did you come?” Her hands dropped back to her sides, as if in defeat.

“Because I wanted you to know who I am and why I'm ruining you. More importantly, I wanted to warn you that there will be no clemency granted on your loan. In one week's time, unless you can come up with thirty-seven thousand dollars plus interest, I will foreclose on the brewery. And you, dear Mother, will lose everything.”

Trembling now with barely contained fury, Seth reached into his waistcoat pocket to retrieve his cigar case, only to pull it out again, empty. In his rush to get to the dance, he'd forgotten his talisman of calm. Expelling a crude oath, he pushed himself to his feet, unrepentant when his abrupt move sent Louisa sprawling backward onto her gray-silk-clad backside.

Staring coolly down at the woman at his feet, he bit out, “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a dance to attend.” With that, he sketched an elegant bow and then turned on his heels to leave.

“I really did love you,” she said quietly, stopping him at the door. “And despite everything, I love you still.”

Seth paused, his back to her.

“Perhaps someday when you're no longer blinded by your lust for vengeance, you'll remember that and seek me out to learn the real truth. I hope so. I want my son back.”

Her voice was filled with such yearning, her words so compelling, that for one mad moment he was tempted to succumb to her siren's song. But then he reminded himself that this was a desperate ruse to save her own skin, and his sanity returned.

Emitting a strangled noise of disbelief, he stalked from the room and made his way back to the foyer. He had to get away from this house, away from
her
before he let down his guard and did something stupid.

“Seth! I've been looking everywhere for you.” It was Penelope. She stood by the staircase, her cheeks pink and her anger at him obviously cooled from dancing. Moving forward to take his arm, she whispered eagerly, “Did you find her?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“We're leaving.”

“But—” she began.

“You!” he barked rudely at a passing maid bearing a fresh bowl of punch. “Where will I find our wraps?”

“I'll have Daisy help you, sir,” the harried woman replied.

“Forget Daisy,” he ground out, feeling more and more trapped as the seconds ticked by. “Just tell me where they are, and I'll get them myself.”

She sighed and shifted the heavy bowl a fraction to point at a door beneath the stairs. “In there.”

Without bothering to so much as nod his thanks, Seth strode to the closet and made quick work of finding their garments. Not pausing to allow Penelope to wrap her shawl around her shoulders, he grabbed her arm and all but dragged her out the front door.

“Seth! Will you slow down and tell me what happened!” Penelope implored, almost running in an effort to keep pace with his long, angry stride.

Too choked up by his warring emotions to reply, Seth scooped her up and practically tossed her into the waiting buggy. The second his own backside touched the seat beside her, they were off. Whipped to a furious gallop the horse tore down the hard-packed dirt street, pulling the light buggy with a speed that made it sail over the ruts and bumps.

Turning a deaf ear to Penelope's shrieked prophecies of broken necks and cracked heads, Seth continued his mad flight until they were well out of sight of the house. Only then did he slow the horse to a fast trot.

“Damn it, Seth! Were you trying to get us killed?” Penelope exploded. “Have you completely lost your mind?”

Seth snorted at her choice of words but didn't deign to reply. All he wanted right now was to curl up with a bottle of whiskey and forget his disturbing encounter with his mother. He definitely wasn't in the mood to listen to Penelope's haranguing.

Unfortunately for him, she was just gearing up to her tirade. “You owe me an explanation, Mr. Tyler, and an apology as well. Why, you practically dragged me out of the Vanderlyn house, and in full view of half the town. I've never been so humiliated in my life! I can just imagine what everyone must be thinking!”

“I don't give a damn what they're thinking,” he muttered, peering at the address on a building. Damn! Six more blocks to the boardinghouse. He urged the horse back up to a safe gallop.

“That's because you don't have to go out on that stage every single night and face those same people you disgraced me in front of,” she pointed out with a sniff. “I don't know how I'll ever be able to bear the embarrassment, what with knowing that they'll be looking at me and remembering me being hauled down the sidewalk like a felon caught in the act of a heinous crime. Whatever possessed you to behave in such an ill-bred manner?”

When he didn't reply, she persisted, “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

He slanted her a jaundiced look. “Your yammering is giving me a headache, and I need to relieve myself so badly that my bladder will probably burst if we hit another bump.”

“That isn't at all what I meant, and you know it!”

He shrugged his undamaged shoulder. “Well, it's all I have to say for myself.” Two more blocks to peace and quiet.

To his relief, she remained silent for the next block.

When she continued, it was in a different vein. A more discomforting one. “Was the meeting with your mother really so awful?”

Keeping his tone light, he replied evasively, “Let's just say that your lucky ribbon didn't live up to its reputation.”

“What happened?”

“It's not worth discussing.”

“You meet your mother for the very first time and come away practically foaming at the mouth and gnashing your teeth, and you say the event is not worth discussing?” She sounded incredulous. “I'd say it's something that very much needs to be discussed.”

He reined the horse to a stop in front of the boardinghouse. “Perhaps I didn't phrase my reply quite right. I don't wish to discuss what happened.”

“Of course not. You never wish to discuss anything with me. You've never given me credit for having a lick of sense.” She eyed him with exasperation. “I don't know why I bother with you.”

“I don't know why you bother, either,” he replied, ready to break from the tension of the evening's events. “Now, let me walk you to the door. I wasn't joking about my need to relieve myself.” With that curt rejoinder, he slipped to the street and moved around the buggy to help her down.

Penelope, however, remained firmly rooted to her seat, ignoring his outstretched hands of assistance. “As infuriating as you are at times, I bother with you because I love you. And because I love you, I'm not going to leave you alone while you're in such terrible distress.” She folded her arms across her chest, glaring down at him defiantly. “Now, if you truly need to relieve yourself as badly as you claim, you'd better start talking. I'm not budging until you tell me what's got you so upset.”

With a snort of irritation, Seth reached up and hoisted her from the vehicle, ignoring the stabbing pain in his shoulder and ribs, and her squawk of protest. “Look sweetheart,” he said brusquely, pulling her resisting form through the open gate and down the walkway. “I don't wish to discuss my mother with anyone, so stop taking all this so personally.”

“But it is personal,” she contradicted, jerking her arm from his grip at the foot of the front steps. “Anything that affects you affects me as well. If you hurt, I hurt. If you're upset, then so am I. That's an inescapable part of being in love.”

Something deep inside of Seth snapped as he recognized the dangerous truth of her words. Grasping her arms and giving her a shake, as if in doing so he could jolt some sense into her, he snarled, “I told you not to love me. Damn it, Penelope! I don't
want
you to love me!”

Ready to weep both at the grievous hurt in her eyes and that in his heart, he pushed her away and stalked back to the buggy.

It was all for her own good, wasn't it?

Chapter 22

Not love him? Ha! Penelope fumed as she climbed the shadowy back staircase of the Shakespeare saloon. Did the blasted man really think that she could shut off her love as easily as if it were water flowing from a faucet?

Did he truly want her to?

Of course not! she scolded herself, remembering his agonized declaration of love earlier that evening. The foolish man was simply indulging in more of his misguided gallantry, the same heroic nonsense he'd pulled in New York. Well, she'd be damned if she was going to let him get away with it this time, especially when it was so obvious from the ache in his eyes that he was hurting badly inside. Why, she'd never in her life seen a man more in need of loving, and she intended to do just that, despite his pigheaded efforts to push her away.

That is, if she could find him. Penelope's brow furrowed with bafflement as she stepped onto the second-floor landing.

Incensed at his martyrization of their love and determined to tell him exactly what she thought of his asinine sacrifice, she'd stormed to his hotel room, heedless of the dangers of walking the streets alone a night. Luckily for her, her furious muttering coupled with her murderous glower proved an effective deterrent of unwanted attention, and she'd navigated the sidewalks with no more harassment than a lewd catcall or two.

Unfortunately her luck hadn't extended to finding Seth, for his hotel room was deserted. And so with her wrath tempered by mounting anxiety—what if he'd been attacked again?—she'd come to the saloon, the only other place she could think to look.

And if he wasn't here?
Stubbornly she pushed the troubling thought from her mind and started down the gloomshrouded hallway toward Seth's office. Except for the faint rustling of her skirts, quiet reigned supreme. Apparently the saloon girls and gamblers who roomed at the Shakespeare were still at the dance.

As Penelope came within sight of the office, her heartbeat quickened with hope. Light spilled out from around the ajar door, casting warm halos upon the scarlet drugget floor covering, bearing glowing testimony to life within. Crossing her fingers that it was Seth and not Monty inside, she peeked into the room.

Her luck had returned. Sitting at the enormous mahogany desk, trimming a cigar, was Seth, He'd discarded his jacket, collar, and tie, and now sat with his shirt open at the throat and his sleeves rolled up to his muscular forearms. At his elbow were a three-quarter full bottle of whiskey and a box of cigars, to his right a small dish full of butts.

She stared for a moment, taken aback by the sight. Seth Tyler smoking? Why, the man hated everything about tobacco. Oh, she knew he always carried a cigar case, but she'd assumed the cigars were used as gentlemanly offerings to his acquaintances.

Hovering uncertainly at the door, she watched while Seth jammed the cigar into his mouth and struck a match. Tipping his head forward, he touched the flame to the stubby brown end and took a deep drag. There was an explosive cough followed by a smothered curse. Hacking as though he were choking to death, he yanked the cigar from his lips and snubbed it out in the dish.