My Husband Didn’t Touch Me For 7 Years — Until The Roof Caved In

Part 1

I knew the exact number of floorboards between my bedroom and my husband’s study.

One hundred and forty-two.

For two thousand, five hundred and fifty-five days, I had never crossed that distance.

Craig had made his indifference perfectly clear on our wedding night, leaving the marital bed before the sheets had even warmed.

I had matched his retreat with a coldness I hadn’t known I possessed.

We built a silence together, brick by brick, until the rain came and tore the roof off the west wing.

The morning of the storm began like any other in the sprawling, limestone carcass of Ashwood.

I sat at one end of the mahogany breakfast table.

Craig sat at the other.

The silence between us was thick, layered with the scraping of silver knives against porcelain plates and the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock.

“The glass is falling,” Craig said, his low baritone startling me simply because he used it so rarely in my presence.

He didn’t look up from his newspaper.

“I have already instructed Dan to secure the shutters in the conservatory,” I replied, my voice carrying the bored efficiency of a head housekeeper.

I took a sip of my lukewarm tea.

Craig finally lowered the paper, revealing the dark smudges bruising the skin under his pale blue eyes.

“The roof over the west wing is failing,” he stated, his gaze fixed somewhere near the silver coffee pot.

“I’ll have the men look at it, but if it storms as heavily as the barometer suggests, we may lose the plaster in the upper gallery.”

I carefully placed my napkin on the table, feeling a familiar dull ache behind my ribs.

“I shall have the maids move the rugs,” I said.

Our marriage had been a transaction—my father’s industrial wealth in exchange for Craig’s ancestral title.

I stood up, my chair scraping harshly against the wood floor.

Craig didn’t flinch.

By three o’clock, the sky over the moors had bruised into a sickly, yellow-green purple.

I was reaching for an upper shelf in the library to replace an account book when the heavy oak door clicked open.

I froze, my arm still extended.

Craig walked straight to the large desk in the center of the room, pulling a set of architectural plans from a leather tube.

His cravat was loose, hanging limply against his throat, and he ran a hand through his dark hair.

The rustle of my skirts gave me away.

His head snapped up, his eyes locking onto mine across the dim room.

“I apologize,” he said stiffly, rolling the plans back up.

“I thought you were in the east wing.”

“It is your library,” I pointed out, my tone drier than the pages in my hands.

“I needed the structural layouts for the roof,” he said, using the desk as a barricade.

I stepped out from the shadows of the shelves, the heavy air making my skin prickle.

I stopped on the opposite side of the oak surface.

“Let me see,” I said.

He slowly unrolled the plans, and I leaned over to look, stepping close enough to hear the slight hitch in his breathing.

The smell of him was suddenly overwhelming—sweat, wool, leather, and a sharp metallic tension.

A sudden violent gust of wind slammed against the library windows, rattling the glass in its lead casing.

I jumped, a short gasp escaping my lips.

Before I could step back, Craig’s hand shot out across the desk.

His fingers brushed my wrist.

It was like grabbing a live wire.

I jerked my hand back as if I’d been burned, clutching my wrist against my chest.

Craig pulled his hand back just as quickly, his jaw tightening.

“Forgive me,” he muttered, his tone instantly reverting to ice.

“I have work to do,” I said, turning sharply on my heel.

“Heather,” he called out, his voice heavy.

I stopped, my hand on the brass doorknob.

“Do not go to the upper gallery tonight,” he said.

I pushed the door open.

“I can take care of myself, Craig,” I replied, walking out into the corridor.

By ten o’clock, the storm struck Ashwood with the violent fury of a siege.

I sat in my bedchamber, wrapped in a thick woolen shawl, listening to the relentless shrieking roar of the wind.

Suddenly, a distinct, sickening crunch of splitting timber echoed through the halls, followed by the heavy crash of stone.

It came from the upper gallery.

I grabbed my oil lamp and bolted for the door, my nightgown tangling around my ankles.

The gallery housed my mother’s rosewood piano and a dozen crates of imported silk I had purchased for the estate.

I burst through the heavy double doors into pure chaos.

Black, freezing rain poured through a gaping hole in the ceiling like a waterfall.

I ran toward the center of the room, grabbing the brass handle of the nearest silk crate and pulling.

“Move!

Damn you!

I screamed over the wind, digging my bare heels into the sodden rug.

“What in God’s name are you doing?”

I wiped the freezing water from my eyes and turned to see Craig standing in the doorway.

He wore only dark trousers and a thin linen shirt that clung to his chest, holding a lantern high.

“The silk!

I yelled back.

Craig shoved the lantern onto a dry table and sprinted into the deluge.

He grabbed my arm, his grip like a vise.

“Get out of here!” he roared.

“No!

I fought him, twisting my arm.

He yanked me toward him.

I stumbled, slamming hard against his chest, the breath knocked completely out of me.

I could feel the frantic thumping of his heart through his wet shirt.

Above us, the wood groaned with a sharp cracking sound like a gunshot.

Craig didn’t hesitate.

He wrapped both arms around my waist, lifting me entirely off my feet.

“Craig, put me down!

I shrieked, kicking wildly.

“Quiet!” he barked, throwing us both backward toward the doorway just as the remaining ceiling gave way.

A massive oak beam crashed down exactly where we had been standing, shattering the crates of silk into splinters.

A tidal wave of plaster and slate exploded across the room.

Craig twisted in midair, taking the brunt of the fall as we slammed onto the floorboards in the hallway.

I lay on top of him, gasping for air in the eerie quiet of the corridor.

My hands were planted flat against his chest, feeling his rigid muscles heaving beneath my palms.

His arms were still wrapped tightly around my back, locking me against him.

I lifted my head slowly.

His eyes snapped open, dark and dilated, fixed entirely on me.

“You foolish, stubborn woman,” he breathed, his voice raw.

He reached up, his calloused hand brushing a wet lock of hair from my cheek.

As his rough thumb stroked my jaw in the ruined darkness, the terrifying realization hit me—for seven years, I had convinced myself I felt nothing, but now I was feeling absolutely everything.