Wait for Me Read online

  Wait For Me

  Tiffany St.Claire

  … it was a whisper to remember for a lifetime of love.

  This is a work of fiction. None of it is real.

  All names, places, and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real names, places, or events are purely coincidental, and should not be construed as being real.

  WAIT FOR ME

  Copyright © 2009

  Brittany Adams and Tina Adams

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner, except as allowable under “fair use,” without the express written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  About The Author

  Get MORE Tiffany

  Chapter 1

  “Must you go?” Rhuid whispered, her voice thick from crying.

  Ian stared down into her blue eyes with lids now slightly puffy and red from her tears and his chest clenched with a painful tightening.

  He smiled softly down at her and tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. “Please stop crying, angel mine. I want to remember you smiling whenever I think of you while I'm away.”

  A choked laugh spilled from her and she blinked away a fresh fall of tears and smiled at him. “I imagine I look a fright right now.”

  Ian chuckled and pulled her close, holding her tight one last time, then he leaned his head down to whisper tenderly in her ear.

  “I love you. Wait for me.”

  Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he released her then and turned to leave, knowing that should he look back he would find her crying still.

  “Always,” she promised.

  * * *

  “Rhuid, you're woolgathering again.”

  Rhuid blinked and turned to look at her sister where she stood in front of the window. “I'm sorry. What were you saying, Clarissa?”

  Clarissa was silent for a moment and her expression changed from being slightly irritated that Rhuid hadn't been listening, to soft and pitying. Rhuid hated when people looked at her like that. It made her feel feeble and small.

  “Stop it, Clarissa,” she said firmly, her lips thinning into a hard line.

  “It's been two and a half years, Rhuid,” Clarissa said gently. “Ian isn't coming back. You have to let yourself forget about him.”

  Anger flooded Rhuid and she glared at Clarissa.

  “And you, sister, are out of line.”

  Clarissa lowered her gaze and resumed looking out the window.

  “Is the Viscount coming to call today?” she asked after a while in a voice filled with forced cheer in an attempt to get her sister out of her maudlin mood. The only thing it helped serve was Rhuid's melancholy.

  She sighed and got up to leave the room, leaving Clarissa's question unanswered. She left the house altogether, taking refuge in the gazebo and there she sat overlooking the pond until the sun began to drift beneath the horizon and the chill of evening sank into her bones.

  Her mind refused to allow her a moment's peace, filling with images of Ian’s smiling face and the two of them sharing a tender embrace. Scenes spilled and tumbled, displaying moments the two of them had shared in happiness where the world around them ceased to exist and others didn't matter.

  A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and Rhuid lowered her gaze to where her hands lay clasped in her lap. How easily the sweet dream she had nurtured had been shattered with one emotionless message delivered by a nameless someone.

  “No trace of Ian MacInnes' body was found. One of the crew members who managed to escape the attack reports he saw Ian stabbed and then thrown overboard.”

  All her hopes for the future had lost significance in the space of a heartbeat, and her world fell apart with those words.

  Her father had allowed her one year to come to terms with her loss, and the very minute her allotted time was up he accepted an offer for her hand in marriage.

  By that time, Rhuid had become the complete opposite of the person she had been before Ian's death. Her laughter was empty, her smiles forced, and she practically ignored Lord Raleigh, or Eric as he wanted her to call him. Either way, she could only view him as the man her father had chosen to be her future groom. Lord Raleigh lacked the vibrancy Ian had commanded effortlessly; seemed lifeless in comparison.

  She barely knew him, but in a week's time she would promise herself body, heart, and soul to him.

  How could she face giving herself to someone who couldn’t make her smile when she was sad? Couldn’t bring her to laugh when tears filled her eyes, nor ease her pain?

  Someone who could never hope to make her feel alive the way Ian had? Someone she didn't love?

  * * *

  “Rhu, my darling, won't you please smile? At least while we are in the presence of others.”

  Rhuid told herself not to grimace at his chosen nickname for her, and forced her lips to relax into a soft smile as he'd requested. Arching a brow, her smile vanished as swiftly as it had appeared.

  “Will that do?” she asked.

  Lord Raleigh sighed and Rhuid couldn't help but notice the wounded look in his gray eyes. He leaned close and Rhuid had to remind herself not to lurch back or cringe.

  “It would have done, but then the look on your face says something entirely different....” he whispered, letting his words drift off.

  Rhuid breathed a tiny sound of annoyance and glared up at him. “Lying about how I feel for you is just that. A lie. False looks of adoration and forced smiles provided as fodder for our peers will not turn my affections in your favor no matter how you may wish it. One would think you'd have realized that by now.”

  She turned then, and fled his embrace, making her way through the crowded ballroom in search of her mother. Thankfully, the dance had ended, thus preventing her from causing a scene that would no doubt be a topic of conversation for days. As it was, her sudden departure from her doting fiancée would probably start the tongues of the gossip-mongers to wagging anyway.

  Pushing through the dense crowd, Rhuid finally caught sight of her mother standing in the center of a group of old friends. Rigid and ghost white, her mother clutched at her throat. Rhuid vaguely registered that the others appeared just as stricken as her mother, but didn't question why as she hurried to her side and grasped her mother's hand tightly in her own.

  “Mother, what has happened?” she asked quickly, a worried frown deeply creasing her brow. “You look like death. I'll send for the carriage, just hold on.”

  She turned to hurry away in order to do just that, but no sooner had she taken five steps than her world shifted on its axis as her eyes fell on the one being she never thought to see alive again.

  “Ian!”

  The name slipped from her now bloodless lips on a strained whisper and her vision began to swim before her eyes as the floor rose up to meet her.

  She saw his lips form her name an instant before all she knew simply faded into nothing.

  Chapter 2

  Ian gazed down at Rhuid's sleeping face and then lazily up at the other two occupants of the carriage. Rhuid's father and mother sat in the opposite seat, both of them sitting rigidly upright, avoiding his eyes altogether as though they were afraid of him. Dismissing them, he returned his attention to the woman slumbering in his arms.

  The deep amber glow of the lamps cast parts of her in shadow and he couldn't resist reaching out to brush his fingertips along the delicate arch of her brow, remembering wistfully the few stolen moments of a time long ago in which he had caressed her thusly, far from the view of prying eyes.

  The tips of his fi
ngers drifted across her silky lashes, over the fragile lid and down to the silken bud of her mouth. He stopped there, overcome by the need to taste her lips again, to see if they were still as pliant and sweet as he remembered them to be, but he held himself back and pulled his hand away.

  He looked away from her and concentrated on watching the flames flicker inside the lamps as the carriage rolled on.

  It had been a shock to find out about her engagement in the moment he'd been carrying her out to her family's carriage, and to hear it from her fiancée no less. His gaze had immediately shot to Rhuid's father, the question burning in his eyes. At the hard look in the old man's eyes, Ian knew the young nobleman's words to be true.

  Even so, Ian had insisted he be the one to ride in the carriage with Rhuid's parents, still holding Rhuid securely in his arms. He had thought the young nobleman would put up a fight, but the fellow had let it go with nary an argument. Ian immediately classified the boy (for that's as he saw him) as a fool if he ever knew one, for what man allowed another to handle the woman he was to marry with such intimate familiarity?

  As for Rhuid's part in all this, Ian wanted desperately to be angry with her for going back on her promise to wait for him, but he could only feel a deep sadness and pain that she hadn't believed he would return for her.

  He felt her shift against him, jostling him from his musings, and checked to make sure she was okay before looking away again.

  “Ian.”

  The soft whisper of his name in the intense quiet of the carriage had him looking at her once again. Her blue eyes glimmered with the sheen of tears and Ian fought hard against the urge to gather her closer and smother her face with tiny kisses in an effort to make her forget her sadness like he had so many times before when she would come to him with that sad look on her face.

  But as he hadn't that right any longer, he settled with tenderly wiping the droplets from her face.

  “Shh,” he said softly. “Rest till we get home. I'll wake you when we arrive.”

  She started to protest but he placed his finger against her lips, effectively halting her words.

  “Not now. The time for talking will come, but for now just let me hold you like this because it's the last time I'll ever get to do so.”

  She flinched as though he had physically struck her but said nothing further.

  Ian gathered her a little closer and somehow managed to keep from looking at her again for the remainder of the journey home.

  * * *

  Huddled beneath a thick blanket that provided little in the way of warmth, though her chill was mostly due to the shock still humming through her rather than the quality of the blanket (which had been tucked around her as soon as Ian had deposited her on the settee upon their arrival), Rhuid found it nearly impossible to keep her eyes from Ian for even a moment.

  She longed to go to him and fling her arms around him and never let go, but he stood so stoically in front of the fire, she was afraid of approaching him.

  The hard look in his eyes did nothing to ease her apprehension either.

  “I suppose I should be taking my leave now,” he said, breaking the tense silence. “I don't want to trouble you any further than I already have this evening. I'll see myself out.”

  He bowed to her father and mother and strode from the room. Rhuid stared after him, her heart pounding fiercely against her ribs. A soft cry passed her lips as she flung the heavy blanket away and hurried after him. She heard her parents call out to her but didn't stop in her rush to reach Ian before he left.

  “Ian, wait!”

  He halted at the door, still reaching for the knob as he looked over his shoulder at her.

  She stopped, suddenly unsure of herself, of what she had meant to say.

  “Yes?” he questioned, lifting his brow.

  She sucked in a deep breath and blurted, “I love you.”

  He smiled softly and with a nod, said, “Yes, I can see that you do. Another man's ring rests on your finger. You do indeed love me.”

  Rhuid began to panic anew. “No, Ian, wait! Let me explain, please!”

  His green eyes flashed. “I have explanation enough by way of the ring on your finger, Rhuid. I neither want or need your reasons as to why you did it. Goodbye.”

  He turned the knob and stepped out into the night, and all Rhuid could do was watch him disappear from her life a second time, as unable to halt it this time as she had been the last.

  “Ian, you stupid fool,” she whispered to the empty entryway, tears spilling from her eyes, her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. “I had no choice.”

  Chapter 3

  “There you are, Rhuid. Mother wants to see you for a moment. Something about the flower arrangements for the wedding, I believe.”

  “I don't care if they're wilted and rotting,” Rhuid mumbled, uncaring how her words revealed her expectations for her upcoming marriage. She closed the book she'd been reading and got up to answer her mother's summons, ignoring Clarissa's shocked look of surprise.

  She found her mother in the front parlor – there was not a flower in sight. Frowning slightly, Rhuid said, “You sent for me?”

  Constance smiled and nodded, then motioned to the vacant chair to the right of her. “Indeed I did. Come. Sit. Talk with me.”

  A strange feeling came over Rhuid but she quietly obeyed, the portrait of a dutiful daughter.

  “Well, you can probably tell flower arrangements is not the topic I wish to discuss,” her mother said, her lips turned upward in a rueful smile.

  “Indeed,” Rhuid murmured. “What were your reasons for sending for me, mother?”

  Her mother laced her fingers together on her lap, looked at her quite seriously and said, “Rhuid, I cannot allow you to go through with this farce of a marriage to Lord Raleigh. Not now. I shouldn't have allowed your father to accept Lord Raleigh's offer in the first place, but I thought it would help you get over Ian's death. I saw from the beginning I was wrong, and I should have put a stop to it then, but I didn't, and … I feel that I should apologize to you.”

  Rhuid was at a loss for words. She could only stare at her mother, try though she might to find enough words to string together coherently.

  Her mother smiled again. “It's quite alright if you haven't anything to say. Now, don't you think we should pay a visit to your charming fiancée?”

  Rhuid frowned. “Why do we need to see Lord Raleigh?”

  Her mother laughed, startling her. “Not him, my dear. Ian!”

  Rhuid sighed and shook her head. “I'm afraid that won't do, mother. Ian doesn't want a thing more to do with me.”

  Her mother frowned at her. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he said as much last night. Right after I told him I loved him. I tried to explain why I was engaged to someone else, but he wouldn't hear it. He saw only that I had another man's ring on my finger and refused to listen.”

  Her mother tilted her head a bit to the side, regarding her with a bit of a smile on her lips.

  Rhuid frowned. “I don't understand...”

  One of her mother's brows lifted. “Don't you think you should make him listen, Rhuid? If you love him as much as I've always thought you did, shouldn't you be fighting to show him you are still very much in love with him? If you let Ian go because he's being a stubborn male, then you're giving him proof he is right … proof you don't love him enough to make sure he knows the truth.”

  Rhuid breathed deeply, then nodded.

  Her mother smiled once more and reached over to clasp Rhuid's hands affectionately, then stood and left the room.

  Rhuid sat for a while contemplating her mother's words and how she should go about finding a way to open Ian's eyes to the truth that had always been there.

  * * *

  Ian lifted the glass of champagne to his lips and drained it in one swallow.

  He tried to remember why he'd decided to put in appearance here tonight, at a masque no less. There was no one he wished
to be chummy with, nor did he really care to play guessing games as to who was dressed as whom. Neither was there anyone in attendance with whom he wished to spend hours discussing trivial matters. It really made no difference to him which young lord was the current bed mate of the thrice widowed Lady Eleanor.

  No, there was none here with whom he wished to pass the time. He turned to leave and nearly ran into a little bit of a woman who smelled faintly of lilies. He grabbed her lightly by the shoulders to steady her. Or was it himself who needed steadying? He couldn't tell. He only knew she had the brightest blue eyes he'd ever seen.

  He'd only seen one other woman with eyes that sparkled as hers did. He studied her a moment, taking note of the curve of her mouth, the shade of her hair, the delicate line of her nose. But it was the smile she gave him as she curtsied that made him realize it was Rhuid. That, and the undeniable sparkle in her eyes.

  She smiled at him again, then slipped from his grasp to disappear into the crowd, giving him one last look over her shoulder before vanishing from view completely.

  Ian stared after her, wondering what game she meant to play, and why she'd decided to play it with him. Wasn't her fiancée accompanying her? His gaze skimed the crowd for a moment, but could find no trace of the spineless whelp she called fiancée anywhere.

  "What is the meaning of this, Rhuid?" he asked, his voice low. His brows drifted downward in a frown. With a sigh of irritation, he pushed his way through the milling crowd in search of the mischievous little imp.

  Ian searched a full five minutes before he spotted her standing alone in a shadowed corner of the room. She disappeared again before he could reach her, and so his search continued.

  He spent a good portion of his time seeking her out, only to lose her to the crowd again. She blended in only too well among the other masked guests. He caught up with her for what he prayed was the last time near the doors leading out to the gardens, but before he could chastise her for the game she played, she smiled beguilingly at him over her shoulder and stepped out into the night.