As You Wish (26 page)

“I love you. You mean everything to me,” David whispered desperately.

Her phone rang. “It might be an emergency.” She doubted it was, but she needed a respite.

“I found something,” Ryan said.

Patricia straightened. They had been searching all week for some sign of her aunt’s journals, because Beatrice was evasive on the past, but so far the only useful things they had found were a trunk of her great-grandfather’s clothing and an evening dress from the twenties that Patricia planned to wear to the ball.

“I found Miss Beatrice’s journal from 1933, and on the first page it says ‘
Today, they sent my Dickie away. Father is furious and Mother says I am ruined. Claudia told me I am a disgrace, but Pogo said he understands and does not condemn me. I don’t know what will become of me, but Father has telephoned his cousin Eleanor. I think I am to be sent away. I do not care about myself, only Dickie. What will he do now that he has been turned out? So many men are out of work. Pogo promised he would see to Dickie, but what can he do? My heart is broken
.’”

“Is that all?” Patricia asked.

“In the journal, but since I had a date, I went through the employee records from 1933 and found a Richard Harden who worked in the stables and was dismissed in June of that year for theft, according to the butler’s records.”

“Theft?” Patricia drummed her fingers on the table. “So why do you think Dickie is this Richard Harden?”

“Well, your great-grandmother told Miss Beatrice she was a disgrace and this Claudia said she was ruined. And she did tell you Dickie was the love of her life. Patricia, I think your aunt was having an affair with the stableboy.”

A bubble of inappropriate laughter rose in her throat. So, these impossible relationships ran in the family. David studied her until she turned sideways in her chair. “That’s very interesting. Is there anything else?”

“Well, I noticed in the employment records there were three other Hardens employed at the same time. Lydia Harden as cook, Bert Harden as driver and stable hand, and Alice Harden as chambermaid. All three of them left by the end of the year. And the butler’s record says Miss Beatrice left on June fifteenth to visit her cousin Eleanor and didn’t return for the rest of the year, unless he didn’t write it down, but I doubt that. I could figure out how many eggs were consumed by the household in 1933 from this thing.”

Patricia pursed her lips. So the love of Aunt Beatrice’s life was the stableboy, and he’d been sent away. Then Aunt Beatrice had been sent away to a cousin for a long visit. “So what happened to Dickie after he left Well Spring?”

“I don’t know. I also don’t know who Pogo is.”

“My grandfather. Aunt Beatrice always called him Pogo. Claudia was their older sister. My Uncle Gilbert’s mother. You remember the one with the medals? You haven’t found any of their journals, have you? I’d like to know what happened to Dickie.”

“I can keep searching,” Ryan said.

Patricia glanced across the table. David looked torn between wanting to crawl into a hole and wanting to strangle someone. Someone named Ryan. David who spent a lot of time researching records and might be able to find out what Ryan couldn’t. “What were the names of the other Hardens again?” Ryan listed them for her. “Great. You keep looking for diaries and let me know if you find anything.”

“Okay, but I feel weird about reading Miss Beatrice’s journals. Don’t you think I should leave that for you?”

Patricia stifled inappropriate laughter again. Last night after her aunt went to bed, she and Ryan had had sex on the kitchen table, and he was squeamish about reading old journals? “If it bothers you, just set them aside, and I’ll read them.”

“Good. I’ll stick to the servants’ papers. I don’t make their breakfast.”

“You don’t want to know the sordid details of my family’s past?” she asked, immediately regretting it when she saw David’s face. He might not know what they were talking about, but he didn’t approve. Whether he didn’t approve of her family having a sordid past or Ryan knowing about it, she wasn’t sure.

“I know enough sordid details, Princess.”

The heat in her belly spilled out through her limbs. Just a word, just a tone. David never made her feel that way. “Thank you for your hard work, Ryan. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good-bye.”

“Ryan?” David asked as she slipped her phone back into her lab coat pocket. He pursed his lips. Rita would have had a field day with that expression, Patricia thought.

“He’s working on a project for me.” Patricia decided it might be best to get him off the subject of Ryan. She leaned across the table, trying to appear imploring. “Could you find information about someone for me?”

“Information? About Ryan?” His neck turned red. Then his gaze shifted around the room, and he dropped his hands into his lap.

“No.” Patricia registered the relief in his eyes but didn’t think much of it. Her lawyers had done a background check on Ryan before they’d hired him and had trusted him enough to give him keys to the house and control over the security system. Ryan was clean as far as they were concerned. “I need you to find information on a Richard Harden.”

“Do you have a social security number? I could run him down and bring the information to the ball tomorrow,” David said, reaching for the napkin she’d written on.

“I don’t think he would have had a social security number back then. He worked for my family in 1933. I have the names of three family members, though.”

David frowned at the napkin. “This might take a little longer.”

“Can you do it?”

David looked up with devoted eyes. “I would do anything for you, Patricia.”

Patricia smiled, covering the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, wondering if he would do anything for her because she was Patricia or because she was The Whitmer.

Ryan, she felt certain, was doing her research for her because she was his princess.

* * * *

Ryan carried the box of journals to Patricia’s bedroom. He felt more like the stupid butler all the time. All he lacked was a black coat with tails, and he’d found one of those in the attic. It didn’t fit, or he’d have started wearing it. Miss Beatrice had a steady stream of visitors requiring him to hang around the house to answer the door and the phone. Patricia had him rooting through the attic for seventy-year-old diaries. All week, he’d been accepting deliveries for the ball. Today the cleaners had been back for the last once-over before the florist took over tomorrow. The grounds needed tending, but he didn’t have time. He’d only managed to take care of the front of the house Wednesday because Mrs. Dudley was here to answer the door between trying to get a room ready for Patricia’s friends.

Being butler did have advantages, Ryan reminded himself, setting the box in the corner of Patricia’s room. It meant he got to see her every night when she came home from work, and Miss Beatrice insisted he join them for dinner in the kitchen, since most days he’d cooked it. He got to sit around the table, talking with them. He almost felt like an equal. Almost.

He smoothed his hand across her bed. With her on call, her bedroom felt hollow. He missed seeing her tonight even though she’d been around the house most of the day. This couldn’t last, and every minute without her felt wasted.

Maybe Beatrice’s Dickie had felt the same way.

Beatrice’s bell rang. Ryan checked his watch. Time for her warm milk before bed.

When he carried the milk into the parlor where the ancient downstairs television was, he found Beatrice watching a black-and-white movie. “Oh, you are so sweet.” She beamed as he held out the silver tray. He liked to bring her her milk on the tray because it amused her so much. “Silly boy. Sit down; sit down. Have you ever seen
Bringing Up Baby
?”

Ryan sat down beside her. “No.”

“You should. Such a funny movie. I laugh every time I watch it. How’s the work going in the attic?”

“The house will be a few thousand pounds lighter when I get rid of all the old tax records.”

“Not looking for anything else?” Beatrice sipped her milk.

Ryan studied her. She was old, not stupid. She might have figured out Patricia was searching for something up there. “Not looking, really, but I’m finding a lot. Miss Patricia is wearing a flapper dress we found to the ball.”

“It was probably my sister Claudia’s. Claudia was so much older than Pogo and I. There was even talk that Mother and Father enjoyed their marriage before their vows because she came so soon after the wedding. Margaret would be pleased to see Patricia now. Margaret was Patricia’s mother. She worried so much about being a Whitmer and holding up the family name. But she wasn’t one of us, was she?” Beatrice sighed. “Poor Margaret loved Ben so much she would rather suffer terribly over being a good Whitmer than live without him. I credit her with a good deal of determination. It’s not easy being a Whitmer in Whitmer. Eleanor threw a fit when Ben brought home a nurse from the war and said he wanted to marry her, but Pogo said his son could marry whomever he wanted.”

Ryan frowned. Patricia had told him Pogo was her grandfather, so he assumed Eleanor was her grandmother. Margaret and Ben were her parents. Claudia was the barren great aunt with the war-hero son. The son who, according to the butler’s records, had been adopted shortly after Beatrice made her year-long visit after Richard Harden was sent away. If Beatrice had been pregnant when she was sent away, the adopted war-hero son could be Beatrice and Richard Harden’s child. He vaguely remembered hearing they used to do that kind of thing back then. The Whitmers were not the kind of family to ditch one of their offspring on any doorstep. They believed in doing their duty. Claudia could have seen it as her duty to adopt her sister’s illegitimate child. The fact that she couldn’t have any of her own was just a bonus.

Couldn’t be. Rita would accuse him of watching too many movies again. “Miss Beatrice, it’s getting late, and tomorrow is a busy day. Do you want me to help you upstairs so you can get ready for bed?”

Beatrice patted his hand. “You are such a good boy. You really do remind me of my Dickie.”

* * * *

In the morning, Ryan met Patricia at the door. He sent her straight to bed. It hadn’t been an awful night, and she’d gotten plenty of rest and was up before lunch as a small army invaded her house.

Ryan was so busy directing traffic that she didn’t want to bother him, so she just admired from afar. He seemed very much in his element, sending the caterers to the kitchen and telling the florist where to park his van. Ryan wore a thick plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans that showed off his legs and backside. A Carhartt jacket hung on the coat tree where he could grab it if he needed to go out into the chill October air to direct traffic, which had already happened twice since she’d started spying. His hair was getting long. He must not have had time to cut it lately. It brushed his shoulders when he moved. Patricia sat on the stairs in jeans and a sweatshirt, watching him through the spindles of the banister like a little girl and wanting to run her fingers through his black hair.

“What are you looking at?”

Patricia jumped.

Beatrice peered over the railing. “He is rather nice to look at, isn’t he?” She smiled. “Why don’t you help a feeble old lady down the stairs so she can get an early supper before her long afternoon nap? I want to be alert for the big party tonight.”

“You aren’t feeble.” Patricia stood and took her great aunt’s thin arm. Ryan walked into the foyer to let someone else in, and her heart swelled at the sight of him. She never reacted this way to the sight of David.

“But I am ancient.”

The doorbell rang again. Beatrice patted Patricia’s arm.

Ryan glanced up at them as he opened the door, all business.

Rita swept in with Bruce in her wake. Her eyes sparkled as she surveyed the narrow foyer like she had never seen it before. “Oh gawd, this is cool.” She turned to Bruce, clasping her hands under her chin. “Isn’t this cool, honey?”

“It’s very cool, dearest,” Bruce confirmed. He shot Patricia a puzzled look, which she took to mean Rita hadn’t asked yet, but she was acting odd. Or odder than expected.

“Hello, you’ve come just in time to have some supper with Aunt Beatrice and me,” Patricia announced as they paused on the landing.

Ryan looked at his watch. “Supper?”

“Poor Ryan, left to marshal this circus. He’s doing a wonderful job, but I think he needs a break,” Beatrice said. “And I would like to have a little something to eat so I can take a nap and be rested for this evening.”

“I can make some sandwiches,” Patricia volunteered.

Ryan shook his head, peeking out the sidelight for incoming deliveries. “And risk the wrath of the caterers? I’ll handle it, Princess.” He froze as the word slipped through his lips.

Patricia met his panicked gaze. He’d never called her that in front of anyone else, ever. It was their private word. Just the sound of it made her knees weaken even as the thought that someone, say Rita, might pick up on it, gave her chills. He turned red.

“Princess!” Rita exclaimed. “Do you ever suppose the reason Princess Leia fell in love with Han Solo was because he always called her snotty names like that? Kind of a kinky thing.” She threw her arms around Bruce. “What do you think, Doctor?”

“I think I’d like to know what you’re stealing from the hospital pharmacy.” Bruce peeled her arms away from his neck as Beatrice laughed.

“You are so cute together. When are you going to get married?” Beatrice demanded.

Rita turned away from him, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said in a funny voice, bobbing her head. She looked at Patricia and stuck out the tip of her tongue.

Bruce opened his mouth, but nothing came out, despite the fact that his head seemed about to explode. Any second he was going to barge into a conversation Patricia doubted he wanted to have in the middle of Grand Central Well Spring.

“Well, why don’t we go to the dining room to eat so we’ll be out of the way?” Patricia said, hoping to derail every conversation at once. She steered her aunt toward the hall. Where they went, everyone else would follow and hopefully lose track of the conversations that had started in the foyer.