Behind the Mask

by Linda Winstead Jones

  They had not been disturbed by any more unusual sounds that might or might not be unnatural. By the time they had finished eating, they had both dismissed the ghostly happenings to their own imaginations.

  After dinner she had done her best to clean this room, where John had deposited not one, but both trunks. She had swept out cobwebs, dusted until she sneezed viciously, and made the bed with the linens she’d found in the pantry. There had even been a nice quilt among the linens. Something to keep them warm if the nights got cold.

  Further cleaning would have to wait until tomorrow, when sunlight would help her to see more clearly. Oh, she wasn’t certain she was ready to see this place by the light of the sun!

  “It’s not as terrible as it seems,” she said softly. “The house is sturdy, and with a little work it will make a perfectly acceptable home.” And John would make a perfectly acceptable husband.

  Although his assurance that he would try not to hurt her had not eased her jitters one bit.

  “Women get married every day,” she said beneath her breath. “They do their wifely duty and survive the ordeal quite well. And I do want children,” she said, still trying to soothe herself for what was to come. “I suppose, if I want children, then I must—”

  The sharp knock on the door caused her to nearly jump out of her skin. She did squeal, but not very loudly. “Come in,” she said, her voice little more than a croak.

  The door opened slowly, and John, still fully dressed from his wedding jacket down to his shiny boots, stuck his head into the room. “Can I come in?” Apparently he had not been able to hear her choked invitation to do just that.

  She couldn’t very well say no. Could she? “Of course.”

  He walked into the room and closed the door behind him. The candle flame nearest the door jumped and fluttered, threatened to go out, and then flared to life again.

  John slipped off his jacket and placed it over the back of a chair near the bed. He glanced her way, but he didn’t really look at her. His unease made her wonder if she had done something wrong. Again.

  “Am I supposed to be in the bed?” she asked, taking a small step toward it, drawn to the safety and comfort of the soft mattress and the quilt she could hide beneath.

  “If you’d like,” John said as he sat on that same chair to remove his boots.

  What she would like was for her new husband to sleep in another room, but that wasn’t likely. As he looked at her and his eyes narrowed, Tessa began to think that maybe he could see through her nightgown. It was too thin. Flannel would’ve been a better choice.

  “I think I will.” She sidled toward the bed. “Lie down, that is. Lying down would be good.” She jumped into the bed, staying as far to one side as possible without falling off, and pulled the quilt to her chin. She lay there and stared up, watching the light from half a dozen candles flutter on the ceiling.

  What had Mother said? Close your eyes and think of something pleasant, Tessa. What has to happen won’t take long. It’ll be over before you know it. There had been more advice from her mother, added in a lowered voice. And don’t be afraid if he makes some kind of awful noise and twitches a bit. That’s perfectly natural. Twitches! And awful noises. Oh, she should have been an old maid, devoting herself to charity work or academic studies. Why had she not thought of that sooner?

  Tessa made the mistake of glancing to the side. John wore nothing but his trousers, and he was working the buttons of that last remaining garment. She closed her eyes tight. She would open them again after he put on his nightshirt. She wondered if he had a cap, like her father, something to keep the heat from escaping through the top of his head at night. He would probably be adorable in a nightshirt and little cap. She hoped they were flannel.

  The bed dipped, and Tessa opened her eyes... but not for long. She quickly closed them again when she realized that her husband not only didn’t wear a cap, but he didn’t wear a nightshirt, either. In fact, he wore nothing at all.

  “Didn’t you... forget something?” she asked, eyes tightly shut.

  “No,” he said quite confidently.

  “But you’re not wearing anything.”

  That observation made him laugh, and she opened her eyes in indignation. He had at least pulled his half of the quilt to his waist. His chest was bare and fully exposed and close. Very, very close. She forced herself to look, feeling it her wifely duty. That chest was nice, she admitted silently, masculine and nicely shaped and dusted with just a little bit of pale hair, but... “Aren’t you afraid you’ll catch a chill?”

  Again his answer was short and simple. “No.”

  Tessa took a deep breath. She was a wife now and she would do her duty. With that thought in mind, she threw herself onto her back and closed her eyes again. Her hands were crossed over her chest; her knees were locked tight. “All right,” she said bravely. “I’m ready.”

  “No, you’re not.” John didn’t touch her. He sighed, in a way that made her open her eyes again.

  Poor John, he looked a little lost. Confused, maybe. “I don’t mind,” she said. “Not really.”

  John shook his head. “Willing to make the great sacrifice,” he said dryly.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  She almost closed her eyes again, squeezing them tight as she had before to block out everything, but the expression on John’s face stopped her. He stared at her so intently, so... so... She couldn’t put a name to what she saw.

  He reached out a single finger and touched her nose. “An intimate relationship between a man and a woman is not a great sacrifice,” he said softly, gently. “It can be wonderful.”

  “For you,” she said.

  “And for you.” The finger that had touched her nose now brushed her cheek. It was oddly fascinating, the sensation of that fingertip on her face. “There’s no reason we can’t make the best of this marriage.”

  As his fingertip trailed across her chin and down to her throat, she considered that perhaps Mother had been wrong and John was right. This was rather... cozy. When he touched her this way, she felt warm and almost relaxed.

  “Should I put out the candles?” John asked as he began to unfasten the tiny buttons at her throat.

  “No,” Tessa said quickly. She didn’t know what was coming, what to expect next, so she didn’t want to be lost in darkness while she took this important step. She wanted to watch John as he continued with this necessary event in their marriage. She wanted to see more of that hungry look in his eyes. It was fascinating. It scared her, a little, but she also liked it. How odd.

  He leaned over, let his face hover over hers for a moment, and then he kissed her.

  John had kissed her before. Brief, passionless kisses that a fiancé might bestow when he said hello or goodbye. None of those kisses had been anything like this.

  His mouth was soft, and yet it wasn’t too soft. It moved over hers, teased and tasted, She wanted to kiss him back, but wasn’t sure exactly how. While he kissed her, he somehow managed to unbutton her nightgown almost to the waist. His hand slipped inside and cupped her breast. She jumped at the unexpected contact, but her surprise quickly faded. His hand felt good there.

  She tensed again when he reached beneath the quilt to grab her nightgown and pull it up.

  “It’s all right,” he assured her between kisses.

  The nightgown rose up slowly, surely. She felt the cold air against her legs, even though they were still covered by the quilt. She trembled, all over, down deep.

  His hand settled against her thigh, and gently but firmly he forced her legs apart.

  A gust of wind from out of nowhere swirled around the bed and snuffed out the candle on the bedside table at John’s side.

  “What was that?” Tessa asked, trying to sit up.

  John, with a hand on her chest and another on her thigh, held her gently in place. “Nothing.” His hand slid higher on her thigh.

  “No,” she said. “It was not nothing. It was definitely not nothing.”
Her eyes searched the room for a sign. Any kind of sign. As she watched, the candle on her side of the bed went out, too. There was no wind this time; of that she was certain. “That was something!” she said.

  John paid no attention at all to the fact that the candles were putting themselves out, all on their own. As a matter of fact, all of his attention was focused on her. A caress, another kiss. Tessa kept her gaze on the remaining four candles that flickered on the dresser.

  John’s hand rose higher, his palm raking against flesh no one had ever touched. That skin was sensitive, and John’s hand was large and gentle, and it made her shake to her bones. It felt... interesting. She could so easily close her eyes and forget that something here was not right.

  The candles on the dresser went out. Not all at once, as if a draft had snuffed them, but one by one, in quick succession.

  That got John’s attention. He lifted his head from her throat. The hand at her thigh didn’t move. “Drafty old house,” he muttered. “Do you really want light, Tessa? It’s not necessary, you know.” His voice was low and velvety. It caressed her as his hands did. “I can find you very well, even in the dark.”

  Before she could answer, the bed lurched.

  “That was not a draft!” she said, sitting up and dislodging her husband in the process. Again the bed jumped, just a little.

  John uttered a foul word and reached for the candle on his side of the bed. She could hear him feeling around for the matches that had been sitting there. “It’s probably a... a...” he searched for an explanation, but apparently could not find one quickly.

  “That was not a squirrel or a draft,” Tessa insisted, clutching the quilt to her chest.

  “Lie down,” John insisted.

  A loud crash made them both flinch.

  “What the hell is going on here?” He found the matches, lit a candle, and held it high to survey the room. There on the floor beside the dresser lay a broken figurine. On spotting it, John sighed in relief. “See?” he said, smiling at her. “The knickknack was probably sitting too close to the edge of the dresser...”

  “It was sitting over there!” Tessa said, pointing to the other side of the long dresser where the mate to the broken male figure still sat, untouched. She could no longer deny what was happening. The snuffed-out candles, the broken figurine, the unnatural lurch of the bed. “It’s the ghost,” she whispered. “Great-aunt Nell.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” John said testily. “There’s no such thing as...”

  His attention was diverted as one by one, the candles on the dresser came to life. One flame, and then another, and then another, until all four burned brightly once more.

  “Ghosts,” he finished softly.

  3

  John put everything he had into splitting the wood before him. He swung the ax down into the upended log so that it was deeply embedded, raised the joined tool and wood high, and then brought them down one more time. On impact, the log split in two. It was a good feeling, to hear the crack, to watch the wood splinter. And still he cursed on occasion as he took care of this simple chore. His bad mood had nothing to do with this much needed physical labor.

  He’d been married more than twenty-four hours now, and his bride was still a virgin. Not exactly what he’d had in mind, but then he hadn’t known he would have to battle not only her own fears, but the interference of... no. His house was not haunted. A ghost had not ruined his wedding night.

  There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything that had happened last night. A draft explained the extinguishing of the candles. And maybe those four that had jumped back to life simply had never been completely out. A spark had reignited those candles. That was the only logical explanation.

  Tessa was simply mistaken about where that figurine had been sitting. It had been placed too close to the edge of the dresser and had fallen. Nothing more.

  And the shaking of the bed had been caused by the house settling, or maybe a minor earthquake. That was it, an earthquake. Unusual in this part of the country, yes, but much preferable to a haunting.

  The pile of firewood beside him grew. There was already a small supply sitting outside the smokehouse, but he wanted to make sure there was no way they would run out in the days to come. Tonight there wouldn’t be candles lighting the bedroom, but a nice, roaring fire. He would like to see a draft put that flame out.

  His bad mood stemmed from much more than the fact that last night had not gone as planned. He hadn’t expected to want his wife so much, and in a matter of moments, at that. He had walked into the room, seen her standing there in her white nightgown with her hair falling down like a dark waterfall, and he had gotten hard. Instantly, completely, and well before he had placed so much as a finger on her.

  The sight of any beautiful woman in her nightclothes might do that to a man, he reasoned. And his wife was beautiful. And soft. And scared.

  He didn’t want Tessa to be frightened. Not of him, not of anything. And she had been last night. First of him and then of the ghost she was so certain haunted them. A ghost! It wasn’t possible. Ghosts did not exist. He would not entertain arguments on that front.

  What did he want? What would ease this frustration? Simple. He wanted his wife to smile at him. That would be a start, and was not too much to ask. He wanted her to relax a little when he touched her, not tense up and purse her lips as if she were waiting for him to spoon a large dose of nasty medicine into her mouth. This also was surely not too much to want from marriage.

  He lifted his head to wipe the sweat from his brow and saw her walking toward him. Tessa wasn’t wearing a nightgown now, and her hair wasn’t down. She was dressed in a perfectly ordinary rusty-colored dress and a plain apron, and her hair was caught in a loose bun. So why did he respond just as he had last night? He shook his response off. At least, he tried.

  “I brought you some water,” she said, gently hefting the glass in her hand. “I saw you from the kitchen window, and you looked hot.”

  As she came closer, he saw that her apron was stained in several places with dirt, and there was even a smudge on her nose. At least she wasn’t afraid of hard work. He was afraid they had a lot of hard work ahead of them.

  “Thank you,” he said, as he took the offered water. He drained it all quickly. Until she had handed him the glass, he hadn’t realized how thirsty he was. It had been very nice of her to think of him. Very wifely.

  “Would you like more?” she asked when he returned the empty glass to her.

  “No, thank you.”

  Tessa nodded and started to turn away, but John stopped her with a word.

  “Wait.”

  She hesitated before turning around, and when she did, she cast her eyes down. Was she offended because he didn’t wear a shirt? Too bad. She had better get used to seeing him in various stages of undress.

  “I need a break,” he said. They had more than enough firewood for now. Impulsively, he reached out and wiped the smudge of dirt from Tessa’s nose, smiling when she glanced sharply up. “And so do you. Some honeymoon, huh? Cleaning the house and chopping wood.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m sure Mother intended for the place to be in better shape than this. I don’t know what happened.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll make the best of it.”

  Tessa bit her lower lip. “Actually, I guess we do know what happened. Aunt Nell. She must’ve scared away the woman Mother hired to clean the house.”

  Ax in hand, John walked toward the dilapidated barn. Tessa followed. “Just who is Aunt Nell?” he asked. “And why is she supposed to haunt this place?”

  “I’ve heard stories,” Tessa said.

  John stopped, turned to face his wife, leaned the ax and then himself against the rickety barn wall, and crossed his arms over his chest. “What kinds of stories?”

  Tessa sighed and sat on a nearby stump that made as good a seat as most in the house which was now far behind her. “Apparently, s
he fell in love with a married man, before the war,” Tessa said softly, even though there was no one around to hear but him. It was a scandal, even after all this time. “Naturally, things did not go well.”

  “Naturally,” John repeated dryly.

  “They say she used to wander the house wearing her wedding gown, even though she never married.” Tessa turned her head and looked out over the land that would one day, if John had his way, be productive and green. Heavens, she had a fetching profile. Utterly feminine. Unexpectedly heart-grabbing. “One day she went to her room for an afternoon nap, wearing her wedding dress, of course. She went to sleep, and she never woke up. They say she died of a broken heart,” Tessa finished in a low voice.

  She stood quickly, a brave tilt to her chin, a spark of determination in her eyes. “If you’d like, we can walk to town this afternoon. If we leave shortly, we’ll be there well before dark. I understand if you want to call the whole thing off. This is certainly not what you bargained for when you agreed to marry me. The house is truly awful, and it’s haunted, and... and...”

  “And what?” he prompted softly.

  Her nose twitched, just a little. “It’s not as if you chose me for some silly romantic reason. This was a business arrangement, and it’s clear to me that my family did not live up to their part of the bargain. It’s not as though we’ve done anything that can’t be undone.” She blushed becomingly.

  “Is that what you want, Tessa?” he asked, standing perfectly still there against the barn. “Do you want to walk to town and call the whole thing off while we still can?”

  Her mouth twitched. “Do you?”

  John didn’t need to think it over. “No.” He knew what he wanted, but he had to have an answer of his own. “Do you?” he asked again.

  This time Tessa did hesitate before answering. “No.”

  “Good.” He gave her a half smile. “We won’t let a little thing like a ghost or a few cobwebs scare us out of our new home, will we?”