My Husband Expected Me to Beg When He Discarded Me—Instead, I Locked Him Out in the Freezing Rain

Part 2

“Heather, open the door.”

His voice was a dull roar through the wet oak, sounding nothing like the commanding baritone that echoed through the halls of his estate.

The wind shredded the sound, leaving it thin and slightly desperate.

I gritted my teeth, the muscles in my jaw popping.

I struck a match, the sharp, acrid scent of sulfur cutting through the smell of wet earth.

I touched the flame to the dry kindling under the kettle, watching the wood catch with a soft, crackling sigh.

I forced myself to sit at the small pine table.

I placed my hands flat on the rough wood, anchoring myself to the present.

This was my house.

Outside, Craig lowered his bruised fist.

He had scraped the skin over his knuckles raw against the rough grain of the wood.

I sat in the shadows, wrapping my gray woolen shawl tightly around my shoulders.

I listened as the rain turned to sleet, aggressively clicking against the glass like a handful of gravel.

I told myself he would walk back to the village.

He was a creature of intense physical comfort.

He wouldn’t endure freezing sleet out of sheer stubbornness.

Yet, a knot of unease tightened in my gut.

The moors were treacherous in the dark, and leaving a man to die of exposure on my doorstep was an act of cruelty I wasn’t sure I could live with.

I stood up, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet.

I picked up the oil lamp from the mantle and walked slowly into the freezing entryway.

I held my breath and listened.

Over the howling wind, I heard a ragged, shuddering intake of breath.

He hadn’t left.

I felt a sudden, sharp spike of anger.

He was forcing my hand.

Even in defeat, he was demanding my attention, forcing me to be the one to break.

I wrapped my hand around the freezing iron bolt.

I threw it back with a harsh metallic clack and pulled the door inward just three inches.

The wind shrieked, instantly blowing out the flame of my lamp.

Craig sat on the tiny stone bench, his knees pulled to his chest.

He was shivering so violently that the heavy bench vibrated against the stone stoop.

His skin was an ashen, translucent white.

His lips were visibly blue, and his usually immaculate hair was plastered to his skull.

He looked up at me, his eyes glazed and wide with a raw, primal misery.

I stepped back, pulling the door open just enough for him to pass.

He lunged forward, stumbling over the threshold and nearly falling onto the slate floor.

I slammed the door shut, locking the storm outside.

I tossed him a coarse, scratchy blanket woven from raw sheep’s wool.

I told him to take off his boots and leave his ruined coat on the peg.

He stared at me, the water dripping from his nose, his numb fingers fumbling uselessly against his heavy horn toggles.

He was powerless here, stripped of his title, his money, and his terrifying authority.

As he struggled to undress in the freezing mudroom, shivering and broken, I realized the man who had once controlled my every breath was now entirely at my mercy.

Did I make the right choice by letting him in from the storm, or should I have forced him to walk back to the village alone?