As You Wish (23 page)

“Everyone seems to know I’m in town, and they all want to come pay their respects to the city’s most famous fossil. The phone has been ringing all day. I’ve had to keep your caretaker with me just to answer the calls. I’m afraid he’s spent more time taking care of me than caretaking.” She laughed at her own joke.

“You’re not a fossil,” Patricia said. Ryan receded to the shadows like a good butler.

“Are you going to be able to have tea with us Sunday?” Aunt Beatrice asked, surveying her calendar.

“I don’t think so. I’m on call Saturday night. Depending on what happens, I might be wiped out most of Sunday.”

Aunt Beatrice nodded. “Good enough. You know by having this one event, you’ve opened the floodgates. Every organization in town will want to have you affiliated with them again. Oh, and that little monster David is coming to dinner tomorrow. He said he talked to you. I heard a rumor the two of you are talking about marriage.”

“We’ve talked about it.”

Beatrice clicked her tongue. “Well, then tell me, are you all better? You were sick when I called.”

Patricia prepared for the grilling she hadn’t gotten from Rita. Aunt Beatrice didn’t have hearts and flowers in her eyes like Rita did.

Chapter Fifteen

Ryan stood by the library door, stepping forward occasionally to answer the phone but mostly watching Patricia. So beautiful and unattainable, sitting there with her great aunt, talking about afternoon teas and balls and formal dinners. Almost as though he’d fallen through a gap in time to be the butler in love with his lady. He didn’t even get to be a knight; he had to be the butler.

This morning when Miss Beatrice had called to tell him she was leaving for the airport, he’d panicked. He’d forgotten about talking to her before he got sick. The only thing he’d had time to do was call Mrs. Dudley about opening up Miss Beatrice’s rooms. By the time he’d gotten back and called Patricia, he’d been sure she’d be furious.

But she hadn’t been. She’d even flirted with him on the phone. As he talked to her, all he’d been able to think about was burying his hands in her hair and kissing her until she was breathless. He’d almost done it when she walked in this afternoon. The exhaustion and anxiety in her eyes had pushed him to the edge. He wanted to gather her into his arms and take care of her in whatever way she asked.

She still looked tired, but she’d relaxed somewhat. He knew how to soothe away the rest of her tension, but he needed to get her alone. That was why he was still standing here when he could have gone home hours ago.

“Well, my dear, your batty old aunt is tired. Would you mind helping me up the stairs?” Beatrice creaked as she stood after hours of social-calendar arranging. “I seem to be just fine on one floor, but getting from one to another is difficult.”

“Of course, Aunt Beatrice.” Patricia stood and took her aunt’s arm.

Ryan followed them down the hall. He’d had to lift Beatrice into his truck when he’d met her at the airport. Mrs. Dudley had taken her upstairs for a nap when they reached the house. That trip had taken fifteen agonizing minutes, and he wasn’t sure Patricia had the endurance for it now. Patricia and Beatrice walked up the stairs with Ryan watching in case he needed to rescue them.

“I’m all right now, dear,” Beatrice said, patting Patricia’s arm when they reached the top. “You go back downstairs. I believe your hired man wants to speak to you.”

Patricia stood at the end of the hall until Beatrice’s door closed. Then she walked back down and into Ryan’s arms. “Thank you for taking care of her. She’s so old, and I owe her so much.”

“She raised you alone after your parents died.”

“How did you know that?”

Ryan smiled. Her body came alive under his hands. The exhaustion left her eyes, and the tension of her shoulders relaxed. He caressed her cheek. “I spent a long drive with her. You’re the only thing we have in common. You and the house.”

“She did. She’s always been so kind to me, and I don’t know what to do for her. She never married.”

“Never?”

Patricia shook her head. “I don’t know why. No one would ever tell me.”

Ryan brushed his fingers through her hair. She seemed so fragile and sweet. He’d heard stories about Patricia as a teen that he couldn’t have imagined. How she stayed home from her senior prom because everyone was too scared to ask her, and how she cried after nearly blowing up the science lab at her school because she misread a bottle.

“Is there something you need, Miss Patricia?” he whispered.

“Will you hold me, Ryan?”

“I already am.”

Her breath hitched with a sob. Did butlers of old cradle their mistresses, not knowing what caused the upset but wanting to fix it? Did their hearts ache with tenderness at the plight of their charges even though they weren’t considered able to understand the problem? Did they rage at the thought that their beloved mistress might end up as the wife of some fool who wanted her for who and what she was to the world and not who and what she could be to him?

Ryan picked her up and carried her to the parlor. He sat in a wing chair with her in his lap and her long legs hanging over the arm. Her slender arms twined around his neck, and she sobbed harder, burying her face against his shoulder. He wondered if she was crying for the reason she was late. Sometimes he thought she cared more about her patients than they cared about themselves. Even if things turned out well, she might be upset that someone had been in pain. Or she might have had another confrontation with David today. Or been looking at her great aunt tonight, thinking that could be her many years hence, but she would be married and loveless instead of the family spinster. She was right about one thing. It was complicated.

After a while, her sobs subsided. She lay still against him for a long time without speaking. The wind moved the trees in the garden.

“How did you know I needed you tonight?” she murmured.

“Princess, it was all over your face when you walked in tonight. You were ready to turn yourself over to me at the front door.” He brushed his thumb along the shadows under her eyes. “And all night you’ve just been looking more and more tired. What’s wrong?”

“Just a lot of stuff. Nothing seems right.”

“You could talk to me about it,” Ryan persisted.
If you loved me
, he wanted to add.
If you knew how much I loved you, you wouldn’t think twice about talking to me.

“Everything is just crazy right now. And we’ve got this stupid ball next weekend.” She slipped out of his arms and walked across the room. “Rita and Bruce are going to stay the night. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Dudley to open up a room for them.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ryan said. He should stand but worried that the crushing disappointment of her walking away from him might bring him to his knees. There was a hollow place between his arms where she should be. He stood up. “I should check the doors and close the gate. Good night, Miss Patricia.”

She looked up from the doily she had been fingering. “Good night, Ryan.”

* * * *

Patricia woke up Sunday and squinted out the window. Another beautiful gray Ohio day. She heard the faint tinkling of china downstairs, accompanied by the twitter of women’s voices. Today was the tea. Perfect. Last night had been
grand mal
terrible. There was an asthmatic ten-year-old with the flu on a respirator and a quartet of parents and stepparents splitting their time between worrying about the child and sniping at one another about whose fault it was that he was sick, as if children didn’t just get sick. Then there was the patient fresh from open-heart surgery who was hemorrhaging internally, requiring her to call the head of cardiac surgery to open the patient back up. An old woman in the ward was dying but had no family to sit with her, so Patricia and the nurses took turns holding her hand, but during her turn, Patricia had been loaned to the ER. In the ER, she got stuck between two combatants who, though injured and bleeding, wanted to finish the fight before being treated. By the time she arrived back in ICU, the old woman had died. And on her way out this morning, she’d bumped into the hospital’s chief administrator, who convinced her she’d offered her house for the annual staff Christmas party when she never remembered making any such offer but was too tired to fend him off.

She fisted her hands around the sheets and considered a good cathartic scream but decided the shock might kill one or two of the more delicate ladies downstairs. On the upside, if she screamed, Ryan would burst through her door to find out what was wrong.

She’d probably tell him this time.

Patricia bit her lip. She should have told him last time. Yesterday, she hadn’t even seen him. She’d hoped he would show up to make dinner, but Jeff had cooked for them. Had Ryan come to the house to check on Aunt Beatrice after she left last night? Probably. He was so responsible and kind. And sexy. Couldn’t forget sexy. And commanding. Couldn’t forget that either. And he, out of everyone in this town, couldn’t care less that she was The Whitmer. Even the surgeon she’d called last night had sounded alarmed when he realized who she was over the phone. Like he might be in trouble with one of the most junior doctors in the hospital, just because the city was named after her family.

With Ryan, that didn’t matter.

The door chimed below. Late guest, perhaps, or a delivery. She should get out of bed and help. Aunt Beatrice was too old to be hobbling to the door.

The door opened far too quickly for Aunt Beatrice to have gotten it, even if she was standing in the foyer.

Patricia strained to hear but could only catch the hum of a low masculine voice.

Ryan.

Patricia jumped up and pulled on the scrubs she’d thrown on the floor this morning before dropping into bed. Her body zipped from sluggish and worn-out to overheated and overexcited before she opened the bedroom door. She leaned over the balcony. The front door was closed and the foyer empty. Her breath shortened with a frantic need to be in his control. To be teased and taunted until everything fell away but the taste of him on her lips and the feel of his rough hands on her bare skin.

She tiptoed down the stairs, walking on the edges to keep them from creaking. The great hall door was closed, probably to keep the noise down so she could sleep. That wouldn’t be happening for a while. Not while her body felt like liquid heat. Hopefully, he was not inside the great hall. She peered into the library and the formal dining room, but they were empty. Working back down the hall, she looked into the butler’s pantry and the parlor. Also empty. She stopped at the kitchen door. Inside, she heard voices, but one sounded like Jeff and the other was a woman, presumably Jeff’s helper. Patricia crept to the edge of the foyer and peeked around the corner. She was running out of rooms for him to be loitering in. If he wasn’t in the music room or the bathroom, he had to be in the great hall.

Running past the great hall door, a board squeaking under her feet, she dove into the bathroom and leaned against the door, relieved to find the room empty. All in all, this was pretty stupid, sneaking around her own house looking for her lover.

Her lover. Patricia’s eyes closed, and her mouth curved into a smile. My lover, she thought. Heat shivered in her belly. All the sneaking around made her feel desperate and wild. Too wild. She needed to be reined in. She needed her master.

She pressed her ear to the door and listened. No sounds in the hallway, so she peeked out. No one. What would she do if she discovered he was in the great hall? Go outside and ring the bell? In the rain? In scrubs and bare feet in October? She’d get punished for that, but not in the right way. Ryan would tuck her into bed, pump her full of hot tea, and scold her first. He’d insist she wait for her punishment until she got her strength back, and that would take too long.

She slipped into the hall. As the door fell closed, it squeaked. She froze, debating whether to run for the music room where there was nowhere to hide, or for the stairs where Ryan wouldn’t be. In the moments while she considered, Ryan walked out of the foyer and surveyed the hall. He looked so proper in chinos and a green button-down shirt. Not quite the black-coated butler, but who cared?

“Miss P—”

Her finger over her lips, Patricia charged at him, waving him back with her free hand. He backed up a step into the foyer. When she reached him, she noticed the cloakroom door open behind him. She’d forgotten about the cloakroom. Under normal circumstances, the coat tree inside the door was sufficient, but Aunt Beatrice must have been entertaining twenty women, and in October, Ryan would need somewhere to hang their coats. Patricia grabbed his hand and pulled him into the cloakroom.

“Pa—”

Patricia shoved him against the closed door and pressed her lips to his. His hands wrapped around her waist as his mouth opened hers, filling her with a sweet heat. She moaned. Her nipples tightened into exquisite points crushed against his chest, reminding her that she hadn’t bothered to pull on her bra. Her body sang with tension.

“Please, Ryan, I need you to master me. Please,” she mewled, kissing his jaw and down his neck.

“Patricia, there are twenty-two women in the great hall with your aunt,” Ryan protested.

She pulled his shirt out of his pants and thrust her hands under it to feel the taut muscles of his abdomen. “Please, Master. I’m being bad and interrupting you at your work. You have to punish me.” Shoving her hand down his pants, Patricia stroked his erection.

“What if someone catches us?” Ryan whispered. He was up on his toes, trying to pull away from her. “Please, Patricia. Someone could come out any minute.”

“Please, Master.” She unfastened his pants as she fell to her knees.

“Patricia, don’t. Someone could find—oooohhh.” He melted against the door when her mouth closed over him.

Patricia pulled him deep into her. All her stress dissolved as his hand cupped the back of her head. She closed her eyes. The taste of his skin and the heat of his desire filled her. She was helpless, in the cloakroom, with the gardener, on her knees with his dick in her mouth. Any minute, one of the society ladies could come for her coat and find them. She stroked the muscles of his stomach, feeling tremulous spasms under her fingers as she pulled him in again.