Behind the Mask

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “Do you think we’re alone?” John whispered, pulling her close, holding her body against his possessively. The way he held her, the way they moved together, it was all very nice. More than nice, it was a moment of perfection.

  “Maybe,” she answered in her softest voice. Her heart started to beat faster. Dancing had never been so fine.

  The shutters along the length of the room opened one by one, revealing one tall window at a time. The shutters, in varying states of disrepair, banged against the sides of the windows and let more and more light stream into the ballroom.

  “Apparently not,” John said with a sigh.

  Something had gotten into his wife and it wasn’t him, unfortunately. Not yet.

  Tessa was always energetic, but today she had been especially so. She had cooked, cleaned, and flirted with him all afternoon. Even their short dance had been oddly enchanting. Maybe she felt guilty about what had happened last night, though she had no reason for guilt. She hadn’t been the one to hit him over the head, and she certainly hadn’t known that the laudanum would knock him out for the night.

  She’d tried to contact Aunt Nell several times today, hoping to reason with the ghost, but had had no luck. Aunt Nell was either pouting or resting. Who knew? Even in the ballroom, where they’d known the ghost to be present, Aunt Nell had refused to show herself to Tessa. John didn’t tell his wife so, but he didn’t think Nell could be reasoned with, Halloween or not.

  His headache was almost gone; the lump on his head had decreased to a smaller, less alarming size. Still, he didn’t feel much like splitting wood or repairing the barn. This afternoon he had walked to the far edge of the property, thinking about the future, about Nell, about Tessa. He found his mind on Tessa quite a lot.

  Walking toward home again, well into the afternoon, he thought about Tessa much more than the fields he’d inspected.

  It was probably the laudanum, but he could almost swear that sometime during the night she had told him that she loved him. Love was not something he had expected from this marriage. He had even been quite sure, at one point, that he didn’t want to deal with that annoying emotion. It complicated matters, had done so for every man he knew who was foolish enough to fall into it.

  So why did those words warm him inside? Why did he hope, in the back of his head and his heart, that what he’d heard hadn’t been a fragment of a laudanum-induced dream?

  He heard Tessa before he saw her. What was she up to now? He didn’t intend to sneak up on her, not at first, but as he got closer, he decided he wanted to catch her unaware. There was still so much he didn’t know about his wife. Still so much he wanted to know.

  She sang as she raked up a huge pile of leaves. Well, he now knew that she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. She danced with the rake as her partner, on occasion twirling about to the off-key music she provided. John stood behind a wide-trunked tree and watched.

  This was not the frightened, staid, proper woman he had married. This was not the meek woman he had carried into this house on their wedding day.

  This was the Tessa he remembered from years ago, the girl who was so vibrant, so full of life. She raked as she danced, adding more leaves to the pile that consisted of brittle dead leaves mixed with red, gold, and orange. She was clearing out the area around the kitchen door and the stairway to the ballroom, tending to the land. Their land.

  She stopped and looked around, nodding her head in satisfaction when she saw that she had done a good job. Holding the rake like a weapon, she faced the huge pile of leaves and gave a poke that sent a few leaves dancing, before heading back toward the kitchen door. John was about to show himself when Tessa stopped and turned. She said something he could not hear. She did like to talk to herself, didn’t she? Herself and ghosts.

  She took a couple more steps toward the kitchen, stopped abruptly, and turned again. This time she set the rake aside as she mumbled something he could not understand. She clasped her hands, glanced around to make sure she was alone, and then started running.

  Slow at first, and then faster, the full skirt of her lilac dress swirling and her face flushed. John smiled when he realized what she was doing moments before she threw herself onto the pile of leaves.

  Leaves scattered, exploding into the air as Tessa landed among them. She laughed, such a beautiful sound, and threw up her arms to dislodge more of the leaves she had raked into that pile. She kicked her feet, flailed her arms, and undid a considerable amount of the work she had just done.

  John left the shadow of the tree and headed directly for the pile of leaves and his laughing wife. He didn’t know how it was possible, but he wanted her more than he ever had.

  When she heard him coming, she sat up awkwardly, and her smile died. No, she had not intended for him to see her this way. Leaves stuck to her dress and her hair. The autumn air and her own exertion had added bright spots of color to her cheeks.

  “I thought you were checking out that far field.” She began struggling to rise from her bed of leaves.

  He didn’t give her a chance to finish, but threw himself down beside her. More leaves flew up and around them as he grabbed his wife around the waist and pulled her yielding body against his. He touched his nose to hers as one red leaf drifted down to land in her hair.

  He kissed her, as if he hadn’t seen her for years, as if he were starving for the touch of her mouth and the feel of her body against his. She kissed him back, tentative but just as hungry.

  “You caught me playing,” she said softly as she took her lips from his. “And I was trying so hard to be a dignified wife.”

  “Playing is good,” he said huskily. “Dignified is overrated.”

  “How’s your headache?” she whispered.

  “Gone.”

  “Good.” And still she felt for the lump on his head, her fingers tender.

  He kissed her again, and then again, and between kisses he plucked leaves from her hair and her dress, allowing his fingers to brush against her as he removed each leaf. She gasped when his fingers brushed against her breast, sighed when he touched her thigh. Moaned when he took one from her neck and allowed his hand to linger there. When most of the leaves were gone, he kissed Tessa well, grabbed her tightly, rolled their bodies over and back again, and started the process all over.

  Rolling about had pushed her skirt up to her knees, and she seemed not to notice. He noticed, though, and he took the opportunity to lay his hand on her bare thigh. She trembled deeply, but it wasn’t a tremble of fear. She wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

  “I could make love to you here and now,” he said, tempted beyond words to do just that.

  “Then do,” Tessa whispered. “Here. Now.”

  He considered it for a moment, even raised his hand high on her thigh and spread her legs. But then he stopped. “No.”

  “No?” Tessa lifted her head. Her hair was mussed, leaves were tangled in with the dark strands, and the color in her cheeks had nothing to do with the autumn wind, not anymore.

  John stood and offered Tessa his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet and immediately swung her up into his arms. “No.” He turned toward the house and carried Tessa to the kitchen door. “You are my wife, and we will, by God, make love in our own bed.”

  “But Aunt Nell...”

  “Aunt Nell will just have to learn to respect our privacy if she’s going to stay here.” He kicked the kitchen door open. “I don’t care if she spins the bed around the room and hits me over the head with every loose object she can lay her hands on. I don’t even care if she sets the room on fire and it burns around us.” He stormed through the dining room, vaguely aware that something was different. It was clean; there were flowers.

  Tessa wrapped her arms around his neck. “Are you sure?”

  “Am I sure,” he repeated as he began to vault up the spiral staircase. “Tessa, I’m more sure than I’ve ever been about anything in my life. We can’t let a ghost beat us. We can’t let her run us out of
our own bedroom.”

  He set Tessa on her feet beside their bed and kicked the door shut. No flame was necessary, since the afternoon sun still shone brightly. His wife stood there, mussed and beautiful and wide-eyed.

  “Are you afraid?” he asked.

  She smiled at him. “Not of anything.”

  9

  Tessa fully expected John to immediately begin to undress her. If he felt anything at all like she did, he wouldn’t want to waste any time.

  But she was wrong. He gave her a quick kiss, ran his hands down her arms, and then left her standing beside the bed. There were two lamps in the room. He collected them both, one in each hand, and placed them in the hallway. He then swept through the room collecting candles and candlesticks. Those items were unceremoniously placed in the hallway with the lamps.

  Again, he kicked the door closed, locking it behind him before his eyes again swept the room. Spotting something that stopped his search cold, he walked to the dresser and lifted the porcelain figurine of a woman.

  John held the figurine aloft. “Do you like it?”

  It matched the one that had been broken on their first night in this room, a mate for the male figure that had been smashed against the wall. “Not particularly. And it has a little crack down the side.”

  Her husband gave her a smile before opening the window and tossing the figurine out. She heard it smash against the ground just before he closed the window firmly.

  With the room cleared of potential weapons and fire hazards, John came to her and kissed her again. Not a quick kiss this time, but something slow and deep and promising.

  In such a short time, she had come to need this touch. The warmth, the promise she didn’t yet grasp.

  “It might be a good idea,” John said softly as he began to unbutton her dress, “if this time we could both be naked.”

  Tessa’s heart leapt. “Yes, it would,” she agreed.

  “Completely”—a button slipped through his fingers “totally”—and then another—“naked.”

  “That would be nice,” she whispered, already wondering what it would feel like to have his bare body pressed against hers. Chest, hips, thighs. At the very thought, something deep inside her jumped and quivered.

  “More than nice, Tessa,” John said as he slowly and surely continued his task. “Much more than nice.”

  He peeled back the bodice of her lavender dress and pushed the sleeves down, his fingers caressing her arms as he undressed her. A hook and eye undone, a ribbon untied, and the dress fell to the floor.

  So far all was quiet. Maybe Nell had decided to leave them alone. Maybe the meddling ghost hadn’t expected them to retire to their bedroom in the afternoon. Tessa lifted her hands and began to unfasten the buttons of John’s blue shirt. His hands hadn’t trembled as he had begun to undress her, but hers did. Just a little.

  When his shirt was unfastened as far as it would go, he whipped it over his head and began to work the ribbon of her chemise.

  The window he had closed snapped open, and a gust of cool wind whipped the curtains almost violently.

  Tessa turned her gaze to the window. She couldn’t see Aunt Nell, but the ghost was definitely present.

  John laid gentle fingers on her face and made her look at him. His calm blue eyes held hers, soothed her. “Ignore Aunt Nell,” he whispered. “This is our home, our bed.”

  Ignore her? John grabbed Tessa’s chemise and dragged it over her head, leaving her standing before him almost bare, by the light of day, with her heart pounding hard and her blood rushing through her veins in a way she had never expected.

  He eased her onto the bed, covering her body with his and chasing away the chill of the wind that blew through the open window. “I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you,” he confessed.

  John lowered his head to kiss one bare breast, to suckle sweet and deep. Her body responded immediately, and continued to respond as he kissed and licked and caressed her. Everywhere he touched her, she responded. Sensations she had never known to exist came to life and grew. When he brushed his fingers across a hardened nipple, her hips swayed in response.

  She wanted this, so much. She wanted him!

  One leg at the foot of the bed snapped, and the entwined couple began to glide downward. They didn’t slide far toward the broken corner before John stopped their progress with a hand gripping the top post. He kissed Tessa again, on the mouth this time, and then gently assisted her to the end of the broken bed and to her feet.

  He guided her away from the bed, toward the door. “Wait here, Tessa darling,” he said with a smile, and then he turned back to the broken bed.

  “I’m just going to save us a little time,” he said, moving to the foot of the bed. When he kicked out with one booted foot and broke the remaining leg at the end of the bed, Tessa jumped and crossed her arms over her bare breasts. The cracking of wood was like a scream. The bed lurched and fell with a thud. A renewed gust of wind pushed the curtains back. John continued on his mission, taking out both remaining legs at the head of the bed until the bed sat solidly on the floor.

  John came back to her with a smile on his face, ignoring the fact that a fire jumped to life in the cold fireplace. “Now you’ve made her mad,” Tessa whispered.

  “I don’t care,” John said, reaching out to take the pins from her tangled hair, coming away with a red leaf that had gotten caught in the dark strands. He raked the soft leaf over her throat and down through the valley of her breasts, before tossing it aside.

  While she stood there with the door at her back and watched the red leaf drift to the floor, John untied the tapes at her waist. With a gentle nudge her last remaining garment, fine linen drawers, fell to her ankles.

  John’s smile faded. He studied her carefully with hooded eyes, his hands caressing her, his fingers exploring her curves. He lifted her arm and kissed her wrist, the soft skin between her wrist and her elbow, the sensitive crook of her arm. Tessa closed her eyes and thought of nothing but the way her husband made her feel.

  He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her from her feet. Their bodies pressed tightly together, she felt the hard ridge beneath his trousers. A few days ago such a sensation would have terrified her. But not now.

  When he deposited her on the mattress that now lay practically on the floor, she reached down to unfasten the top button of those trousers.

  John lay beside her and let her unfasten all those buttons, even though he could have made quicker work of the job himself. He watched her, he kissed her here and there, and when his manhood sprang free and she laid her hand on him, he closed his eyes and moaned.

  The bed moved. For a moment, Tessa was certain it floated off the floor.

  “Ignore her,” John instructed again. “She can’t stop us, not this time.”

  He kicked off his boots. They fell to the floor with a thud, one and then the other. With Tessa’s help the trousers came down and off, too.

  Finally, they lay together. Completely naked as John had wished. He was larger than her, longer, wider, harder, but she did not feel unequal or endangered. It struck her, as real and true as the cool air that rushed through the window and the heat from the fire that burned in the fireplace, that John was her protector, her partner, and her lover. And he always would be.

  She closed her eyes while he kissed her. Her mouth, her throat, her breasts. His hand raked down her side, over the swell of her hip to rest on her thigh. When he brushed that hand up the tender inner flesh of her thigh, she parted her legs slightly.

  He touched her, and she leapt at the unexpected power of the sensation. She felt that caress everywhere, from the top of her head to her toes. When he stroked her she grew wet, and a new tremble worked through her body.

  Now she was quite certain the bed floated off the floor. It drifted, it turned. One of John’s boots came up and was deposited forcefully beside them. The mattress jumped. The other boot went flying out the window.

  But last night Aunt N
ell had promised she wouldn’t hurt John again, and for some strange reason, Tessa believed the ghostly promise. Maybe because she wanted this so badly. No one could stop them; nothing could interfere.

  The last thing she needed was for Aunt Nell to materialize, floating there beside the bed, an expression of fury mixed with undeniable sadness on her face.

  “She’s watching,” Tessa sighed.

  “Close your eyes and pretend she’s not here.”

  “I can’t.”

  John rolled atop Tessa, sheltered her, placed himself between her legs. He kissed her throat, flicking his tongue over the sensitive hollow. “She can’t stop us. Fire, wind, threats can’t stop us. Only you can stop this, Tessa. Only you.”

  He was right there, touching her but not pushing to fill her. Her body throbbed where he touched her, where his masculinity met her femininity. Her body wanted his, but her mind was distracted by the image of her dead aunt floating much too close by. Her body tensed. This was a moment for the two of them, no one else. She wanted to be completely alone with her husband when he became a part of her.

  “I wanted this moment to be perfect for you,” John whispered. “Why is that hag so intent on making sure I never get to make proper love to my wife? A man should be able to seduce the woman he loves without constant interference.”

  What happened next came all at once. The bed dropped slowly to the floor, the fire died down, the window slowly closed. And Aunt Nell disappeared.

  John lifted his head. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” he whispered.

  Tessa nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close. “It’s just the two of us now. Finally.” Because he loved her. Did he even realize what he had said? Maybe, maybe not. Aunt Nell had heard. Tessa had heard.

  “I love you, Johnny,” she whispered softly.

  He guided himself inside her, slowly, gently, pushing past her maidenhead and causing a moment of pain so pale and fleeting it was immediately dismissed. Then forgotten.

  She held on tight while he made love to her, while he gently and thoroughly moved inside her. Every stroke lit something new within her, teased her with fragments of pleasure and wonder. His hips rocked, steady and sure, and his length pushed deeper and deeper with every new invasion until he drove into her fast and hard and was completely sheathed inside her.