Masque

by Lexi Post

  Rena sighed. “I know. But what bothers me is how I found out. Eric wanted me to see Synn vanish, and it wasn’t because he thought I should know. He wanted to split us apart for some reason and since it is Eric, I can’t shake this feeling that I’ve played into his hands.”

  Valerie didn’t say anything. She patted Rena’s hand and sat back.

  Rena crumpled her paper napkin and dropped it onto her plate. “I’m going up to watch the sunset. Want to come?”

  “No. With the days staying lighter later, I want to take advantage of that and inspect Matt’s work. I haven’t had time to go outside all day.”

  Rena stood. “Okay. I’ll clean this up. You go ahead out.”

  “Right.”

  Once Valerie left, Rena threw away the paper plates and napkins and took her bottle of water with her as she climbed the stairs to the roof. The Abbey was so quiet, it was hard to imagine that just a few days ago she’d been having sex in the library and conversing with Mrs. McMurray. The only ones left in the Abbey now were those who were alive, which meant at this time of day, her and Valerie.

  She pushed open the wooden door and stepped out onto the roof. She half expected to see Synn here, but to her disappointment, he wasn’t. She didn’t really think he would be since the ghosts weren’t solid during the new moon, but she couldn’t seem to convince her heart of that fact.

  Carefully, she treaded around the stonework to lean against the embrasure. The sun’s brilliance was muted by low layers of clouds, causing its light to shine through spaces in between. It dappled the water with dots of light like large fireflies skimming over the waves. Synn would have loved the view. She straightened her shoulders. Synn had probably seen the view a hundred times. She tried to harden her heart against him, the sting of his betrayal still fresh, but his disappearance had her missing him. The more she imagined his current existence, the more she sympathized. What would she have done in his shoes? Unfortunately, she didn’t like her answer.

  * * * * *

  Rena sat in the chair facing her desk, staring out the green window that made the outside landscape appear like summer, when in fact the buds were barely starting. She should be working, like the tireless team of Val and Jamie, but she’d spent last night alternately crying and having nightmares. She was tired. Maybe she needed a day off.

  “Rena.” The deep voice slid beneath her skin and started her heart pounding. She had to be imagining it. Synn was a ghost. He could not appear for another few days and then only partially. Maybe a bit ahead of the others, but definitely could not speak. She closed her eyes. Great. Now she was having hallucinations.

  “Rena. I need you.”

  Her heart broke at the words, but her mind still refused to believe. With more than a little bit of fear, she turned her head and looked around the side of the wingback chair, afraid to hope that she truly heard Synn’s voice. As his tall frame came into view, handsome in gray pantaloons, white shirt and gray vest, her breath caught. Confusion, hope, fear, anger congealed inside her as she tried to comprehend the reality that was Synn. On shaky legs, she stood to face this latest apparition, holding tight to the back of the chair. “You can’t be here.”

  He didn’t move as his eyes swept over her. She doubted he could find the blue jeans and oxford shirt sexy in any way, and yet as his gaze returned to hers, his desire burned strong. She grasped the chair tighter. “You are a ghost. You vanished. You should be invisible right now.”

  He gave a halfhearted grin and shrugged. “But I’m not a ghost.”

  She shook her head. “But you vanished. I saw you.”

  “Rena, I’m not a ghost. I’m not dead. I did not lie to you.”

  Mutely, she shook her head, her mind refusing to believe him. Her heart aching. She found her voice, though it was barely a whisper. “You vanished like a ghost.”

  He nodded, the anger at what Eric made him reveal obvious. “Yes, I did. But you know what the ghosts are like here. They solidify with the full moon. Remember Mrs. McMurray? She had no feet when you first met her and she couldn’t speak. Yet here I am.”

  She shook her head. He did have a point.

  He refused to look away. “And have you seen any ghosts outside the walls of the castle?”

  She hadn’t, but then again… “When have you been outside?”

  He smiled crookedly. “Do you not remember my showing you the engraving on the battlement?”

  His hurt at her forgetfulness struck her as strange. “No, I didn’t forget your family helped to create this place. But Synn, how did you vanish like that?”

  He walked toward her and she backed up against her desk.

  He froze when he saw her reaction. “I have to admit, I haven’t always been able to do it. It’s a learned skill that took me much time to master.” His lips twitched. “I had many, many false starts.”

  “Is it a magician’s trick?” She wanted it to be.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Then something that can only happen in the Orange Room?” She could accept that.

  He sighed. “It’s nothing more or less than what it is.”

  She tried to wrap her mind around the idea that he was not a ghost, but could vanish like one. “Then what are you?”

  “Frankly, I don’t know.”

  What? He didn’t know what he was? Damn him. Or was Synn already damned? At that, her heart cringed. She needed to know. Grasping at a confidence she did not feel, she walked around her desk and sat in her chair. “Then maybe it’s time we figured it out.”

  He hesitantly came forward and sat in the wingback chair she’d vacated, acting as if she were a puffin he might frighten away if he moved too quickly. An apt observation on his part.

  She sat straighter and leveled her gaze at him. “Tell me what happened. I want to know how these people died and why you feel responsible.”

  Synn’s jaw tensed and his faced turned impassive. “Very well, if that is what you need to hear.”

  Something in his tone had her wondering if she should back down, but she needed to know. She gritted her teeth to keep from stopping his explanation.

  “I told you it was the Red Death that killed everyone, every last man and woman.” He stood again, his frame stiff, but as he began to pace the width of the library his stride turned fluid. “Prince Prospero had invited many of his friends to live here in the Abbey with him. Then he closed off all the exits to keep anyone from entering or leaving in order to keep out the Red Death. Many from the wealthier classes accepted the invitation as fear of the disease was high, and it killed much faster than the Black Plague that had decimated England.”

  Synn stopped and speared her with his gaze. “But some of us declined to join him.”

  Rena gasped. If he was invited by the prince, he had to be over a hundred and seventy years old!

  He started to pace again. “The prince was a leader here in Nova Scotia, an assemblyman, and I felt he should be doing all he could to help these people, but he laughed and said he was, by saving as many as he could. But I knew him well, his motives weren’t that pure. While he played and cavorted behind these walls, throwing his midnight Masques on a monthly basis, the people he represented were dying. I couldn’t be a part of that.”

  Synn grasped the back of the chair and stared at her. His eyes reflected such pain that she almost looked away. “I knew how to get into the Abbey because I designed it.”

  Oh God. The initials he had shown her on the roof. They were his.

  He gave her a self-deprecating smirk. “I entered one night with a plan to convince the prince to help. I had a mask made to resemble the pitted face of a Red Death victim. I strapped it on tight so he wouldn’t know it was me. I entered his midnight Masque, hoping that after I scared him, I could talk some sense into him, but I never had the chance.”

  Synn finally broke eye contact, and it was all she could do not to run to him. The pain in his eyes reflected in his voice, and she grasped the arms of her chair to keep
herself there.

  “The moment I appeared, he ordered me killed, but as I walked away from him through the colored rooms, his ‘friends’ parted and left me a path, none willing to stop me.” Synn stared out the window behind her, his body still. “The prince ran after me himself and in the Black Room, he accosted me. The second he laid his hands upon the mask, he dropped dead at my feet. I must have been a carrier of the disease.”

  Synn returned his gaze to her, she read utter defeat in his eyes and her own teared.

  “When the prince’s friends witnessed his death, they tried to take me, but one by one they too succumbed, once they laid hands on me. The disease flew through the Abbey, and even people I never saw that night died.”

  Rena found her voice, though it sounded scratchy even to her own ears. “Did you die too?”

  He looked startled, then he rubbed his chest. “No. I was one of the few in town who was immune, but for weeks afterward, I wished I could die. I didn’t dare leave the Abbey for fear of infecting others, and I had seventy-three corpses to bury.”

  He threw himself into the chair and rubbed the back of his neck. “I buried every person. When I was done, I exchanged my poor wooden crosses for proper headstones by taking down the walled garden next to the chapel, stone by stone.”

  That’s why the headstones she’d visited in the graveyard were different. It was impossible to conceive of one man doing so much. It reinforced what an honorable person he had been…was. “That must have taken weeks.”

  “Months, but what else did I have to do? I owed them a decent burial.”

  She leaned forward, her heart breaking for him. “You did all you could for them, so why are you here with them?”

  Synn shrugged. “My guess is I must pay for my sin.”

  She shook her head. “I mean, did you die eventually?”

  His gaze flew to hers. “No. Months later, once the Red Death passed, the new town constable opened the Abbey to tell those inside the good news. All he found was me and seventy-three graves, so he shot me.”

  She leaned forward on the desk. “He shot you? Did he question you? Let you explain? Anything?” Her insides tensed at the injustice even though the event occurred long before her great-grandparents were born.

  “No.”

  She sat back, stunned. “But you didn’t die?”

  Synn’s eyes glazed. “I don’t remember the pain, but I do remember waking in a box coffin in the entryway of the Abbey. The lid lay on the floor next to me. Fearing they would bury me alive, I jumped out and laid the lid on top. Then I hid. The carpenter returned and simply nailed it shut and they took the box away.” His gaze returned to her, his face devoid of any emotion. “I have been here ever since.”

  She shivered, shaken by his admission. It was impossible and yet here he sat, broken by his own guilt, a man, not a ghost. She ignored the tear that tracked down her cheek and stood. She wanted to relieve his anguish with all her heart and yet she wasn’t sure what he was. He couldn’t be human and be alive, but he wasn’t dead either. She walked to him, and kneeling at his feet, she touched his rough cheek, warm, not cool, beneath her palm.

  He stared at her, his face changing to reveal his need for absolution, for conclusion. He needed her.

  The realization swept through her like a powerful wind and she swayed. Unable to resist, she kissed his cheek. When she pulled away, his eyes were closed.

  “Synn. This isn’t your fault. I think perhaps the reason you are here is because you won’t let go of your guilt.”

  His eyes snapped open. “What? No. I’m here to help them cross over. I have to find a way to help these spirits continue their journey. Only then will I have done all I can do for them.”

  The determination in his eyes was too strong to deny. He would never let his guilt go until the ghosts had gone. And then would he go too? “Are you cursed?”

  Synn chuckled with conviction and hopelessness. “Definitely.”

  Her sympathy for his plight returned full force and her need to comfort overrode everything else. Pulling his head toward her, she kissed him gently.

  He had other ideas, and she soon found herself pulled onto his lap, her mouth ravished and her breast cupped in his hand, his hard cock pressing into her ass. When he let her up for air, she ached to remove her clothes and began to unbutton her shirt, but Synn’s hand on hers stopped her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He raised his brow. “It is daylight, and if I’m not mistaken, there are those in the Abbey right now who don’t qualify as ghosts.”

  She flushed at his reminder. There were no doors on the library, or any of the colored rooms for that matter. Though Jamie and Valerie may be occupied with renovations, she didn’t want to chance it. “You’re right.”

  He lifted her off his lap and stood. “Besides, we’ve already enjoyed this room. The next experience will be in the White Room. We must wait until the ghosts return before we continue.”

  A cold reality hit Rena full in the gut. She’d been about to give into sexual urges with a cursed man, once again ignoring her logical brain. Just because he wasn’t a ghost didn’t mean she should fall back into bed with him, not that it appeared to be what he wanted anyway, at least not now. Her women’s intuition finally raised its intelligent head and a suspicion rose strong inside her. “Synn, why must we wait until the ghosts return? I have a perfectly comfortable bed upstairs with plenty of privacy.”

  Synn’s grin faded and his aristocrat-blank look returned. She didn’t like that face of his at all.

  He remained motionless, silent.

  Despite the impassivity of his appearance, it was clear his brain worked double time, deciding what he could tell her. It wouldn’t be what she wanted to hear. She waited, her assertion that she had been used growing stronger by the second.

  He lowered his head as well as his voice. “I was under the impression that you wanted to experience the Masque. The Masque cannot continue until everyone has returned and become solid again.”

  She scrutinized him. He didn’t give a clue to what he hid, but his avoidance of her suggestion told her all she needed to hear. He obviously saw her as no more than a lover, exactly what she had planned for him. It served her right for letting her heart become involved. He wanted to have a little fun in the Pleasure Rooms and she was the only one available. How flattering.

  She tried to match his tone. “That’s true, I was curious about this Masque, but I’m very busy now and having new sexual experiences is not on my to-do list at the moment. Let’s see where I’m at in a couple weeks. The renovations for the Abbey are too important. I hope you can continue to help Valerie and Jamie. They have been drilling in the dark lately, so to speak, without your assistance.”

  If she hadn’t been watching his face intently, she would have missed it, but his nostrils flared a bit and the shards of blue in his eyes brightened, but otherwise he remained impassive.

  “Of course I will help them. I only stayed away so long to prove what I was to you. As I have done that, I’m now at your service.”

  She expected a slight grin at his last words, but he kept his aristocratic façade. Good. That’s what she wanted, distance. “Thank you.”

  He bowed slightly and strode out of the room. Her eyes couldn’t resist watching his ass as he left. Shit, the man wore tight pants.

  Even as he disappeared around the corner, her stomach tightened and a niggling doubt started in the back of her head that she may have just made one blond, naked ghost with a skinny penis very happy. What was really going on in her Abbey?

  Chapter Eleven

  Synn paced the wall-walk, ignoring the light drizzle that made the stonework slippery. “Ballocks! God damn, bloody, cockchafer!” He slammed his fist down hard on the crenellation. The pain shot through his arm up into his shoulder. “Fuck.” He held his arm against his side until the stinging subsided to a tolerable level.

  Now what? He had lost his connection with Rena. How the hell was he t
o get it back? He’d been too confident, too sure of his ability to please her, too attracted to her. Now she had pushed him away, and he only had a week to change her mind. Actually, he could take months if he had to, but his friends were anxious to move on. They had hoped the last full moon would have been the final one. Now, they had to endure yet another cycle. He was only three rooms away from finishing it…for good.

  He stopped and stared at the gray moist town like he had a hundred times before, rubbing the back of his neck as he berated himself. Even if I have to beg her, I will be sure that our hostess finishes the last rooms. His own words to Father Richard echoed in his head. He hoped it didn’t come to that, but he would beg her if he had to. Surely someone as caring as she wouldn’t deny a desperate man. That she wasn’t afraid of exploring the sexual activities of the Masque so far made his task at least possible. In fact, she enjoyed the colored rooms as much as he, though he didn’t remember having quite this much pleasure in the past. Maybe his long abstinence and her being a novice added to his own experience.

  And maybe, her own sexual need could convince her to continue the Masque. It had worked once before. He had brought her to the brink of ecstasy two nights in row and she had succumbed to the Exhibitionist Room, but his gut told him it may take more than that. His betrayal, as she viewed it, made her wary.

  She had every right to be wary. He had already betrayed her by taking her to the Masque. What would she do when the Abbey was no longer haunted? A new guilt began to form inside his gut. Maybe he could promise her—

  “Valerie told me I’d find you up here.”

  Synn spun at the male voice of the stone mason. “Jamie.”

  “Not the best day to be taking in the view.”

  Synn smirked. “Maybe, maybe not. There is a certain attractiveness in the slower pace of Ashton on a day like today.”

  “Aye, true enough. Having lived here all my life, I can appreciate what you mean.” Jamie studied Synn. “Have we met before I came to the Abbey? You look familiar somehow.”

  Synn meandered over to where the man stood next to the roof entrance. Now that he mentioned it, there was something, but that was impossible since Synn hadn’t left the Abbey in over hundred years. “You do look familiar.”