My Husband Gave Our Bedroom to His Mistress — So I Walked Into the Freezing Woods
Part 2
I stared at the rutted tracks left by Dan’s cart, the sleet stinging my cheeks like tiny needles.
The bundle of kindling lay in the freezing mud at my feet.
I wanted to leave it there, a monument to Greg’s quiet, devastating cruelty.
Instead, I bent down, tucked the damp wood under my arm, and began the agonizing walk back to the cottage.
The cold had seeped through the soles of my boots, turning my toes into heavy blocks of wood.
When I pushed open the heavy oak door, the fire was down to a faint, pulsing ember.
I threw the kindling onto the hearth, watching it flare into a pathetic yellow light that would barely last an hour.
I walked to the grime-covered window and looked toward the hill.
The heavy, imposing silhouette of the manor house blazed with light from every window.
Greg was up there, probably sitting by the fire with a glass of claret, waiting for the cold to break me.
He wanted to see me drag myself up those grand stone steps, shivering and defeated.
“You arrogant, pathetic man,” I whispered to the glass.
I turned away and grabbed the rusted hatchet from the root cellar, its splintered handle slick with grease.
I marched back out into the fading light, my lungs burning with every breath.
I found a fallen elm tree and brought the dull blade down with every ounce of humiliation I possessed.
The wood was iron-hard, jarring my arms and sending agonizing shocks up to my shoulders.
I swung until the blisters on my palms tore open, staining the wooden handle with bright, fresh blood.
If I was going to die in this mud, I would do it standing on my own two feet.
The snow began falling on a Tuesday, a violent, blinding blizzard that buried the woods in a suffocating white prison.
I lay on the lumpy mattress, buried beneath every scrap of fabric I owned, shivering violently.
My chest rattled with a heavy fluid weight that made breathing a torturous effort.
The cottage was completely dark, the window blocked by a massive snowdrift.
A dark voice in my fevered brain whispered that Greg had won, that he had starved me out.
“No,” I croaked, my throat lined with shattered glass.
I tried to sit up, but my arms collapsed beneath me, devoid of all strength.
I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, and as the darkness finally swallowed me, I heard the heavy oak door shatter open.
Part 3
The rusted latch of the heavy oak door exploded inward, raining jagged splinters across the dusty floorboards of the cottage.
Greg stumbled into the frigid room, his immaculate wool coat frozen solid and his bare hands bleeding from digging through the snowdrift.
He dropped to his knees in the dirt, pulling back the moth-eaten blankets to reveal Megan’s terrifyingly pale face.
Her lips were cracked and blue, her breaths coming in shallow, wet rattles that sounded like tearing paper.
For the first time in his pampered life, the arrogant man felt entirely, utterly powerless.
He gathered her into his arms, feeling the sickening lightness of her hollowed bones, and began the brutal march back to the manor.
It had all started weeks earlier, on a Tuesday locked in the suffocating grip of late November.
The scent of crushed lavender and damp wool.
That’s what Megan remembered most about the day her husband gave her bed to another woman.
There was no screaming match in the grand hall, no shattered porcelain, just the quiet thud of her trunk hitting the hallway floorboards and the duke’s valet avoiding her eyes.
When a man strips you of your dignity, you don’t fight for a ruined mattress.
You walk out and you let the cold swallow you whole.
It happened on a Tuesday.
The estate was locked in the gray, suffocating grip of late November.
Megan stood in the doorway of the master suite, her hands folded over the heavy brocade of her skirt.
Her knuckles were white.
Two footmen, the footman and an under butler whose name she could never recall, were hauling her cedar chest out into the corridor.
They kept their heads bowed.
The servants always knew how to become blind, deaf, and dumb when the nobility decided to shame themselves.
Greg stood by the hearth.
He wasn’t looking at her.
He was meticulously adjusting the gold cufflink on his left wrist.
The firelight caught the sharp, aristocratic angle of his jaw, the jaw that had once pressed against her collarbone in the dark.
Now, he appeared as a stranger crafted of wax and fine wool.
“Brenda requires the southern light,” Greg said.
His voice was entirely conversational.
He could have been discussing the crop yield or the purchase of a new hunting hound now.
“Her constitution is delicate.
The physician recommends morning sun.”
The words dropped between them like loose coins on the stone floor.
Cheap.
Clattering.
Megan looked past him.
Brenda sat on the edge of the velvet armchair, running a slow, manicured finger over the mahogany vanity.
Megan’s vanity.
Brenda was wearing a shawl of pale blue cashmere, the exact shade of Megan’s favorite riding habit.
The mistress didn’t look delicate.
She looked utterly, terrifyingly comfortable now.
Megan wanted to scream.
She wanted to pick up the heavy iron poker from the fireplace and smash the imported venetian mirror into a thousand jagged splinters.
She wanted to rake her nails down Greg’s perfectly shaven cheek and watch him bleed.
But the urge remained entirely locked in her throat, a hard pulsing knot of cowardice and pride.
She did not scream.
She swallowed, the dry click sounding deafening in her own ears.
“The blue room has been prepared for you.”
Greg added, finally glancing up.
His eyes, a pale washed-out gray, held no malice.
That was the worst part.
There was no cruelty in his gaze, only a mild inconvenience.
He was annoyed that she was still standing there, forcing him to acknowledge the ugliness of the transaction.
“It is entirely adequate.”
The blue room was in the guest wing.
It overlooked the kitchens.
It smelled permanently of boiled cabbage and damp plaster.
It was the room where they put elderly aunts and minor, unimportant cousins now.
“I see.”
Megan said.
Her voice sounded thin, like tearing paper.
She turned on her heel.
She walked down the corridor, the heavy thud of her sensible leather boots muffled by the persian runners.
She walked past the blue room without stopping.
The air in the manor suddenly felt unbreathable, thick with the scent of Greg’s sandalwood cologne and Brenda’s heavy cloying rosewater.
She needed out of the lungs of this house.
She walked down the servants’ stairs, the rough stone biting through her thin soles.
She bypassed the kitchens, stepped out through the scullery door, and walked directly into the freezing sleet.
She didn’t stop until she reached the edge of the estate.
The trees here were stripped bare, black and skeletal against the bruised sky.
Nestled in the encroaching woods sat the old groundskeeper’s cottage.
It had been abandoned for 3 years, ever since old Mr.
Mr.
Smith had died in his sleep.
The roof sagged.
The windows were opaque with grime.
Megan pushed the heavy oak door.
It shrieked on rusted hinges, protesting the intrusion.
She stepped inside.
The air was frigid, smelling strongly of wet ash, mouse droppings, and rot.
It was horrific.
It was filthy.
It was hers.
She closed the door behind her, leaning her back against the rough wood, and slid down until she hit the dusty floorboards.
Only then did she allow her lungs to hitch.
She didn’t weep like a heroine in a tragic opera.
She gasped ugly, ragged sounds, her chest heaving against the tight, unforgiving stays of her corset.
Her hands pressing into the dirt until her fingernails cracked.
The first night was a brutal lesson in physics.
Cold is not merely an absence of heat.
It is a physical entity.
It crept through the cracks in the floorboards.
It sank its teeth into Megan’s ankles, gnawed at her knees, and settled heavy and deep inside her chest.
She had dragged a single moth-eaten wool blanket from a trunk left behind by Mr.
Smith.
She lay curled on a lumpy horsehair mattress in the corner of the single room, wearing her velvet day dress, her winter cloak, and her leather gloves.
Still, she shivered so violently her teeth clicked together.
“Why didn’t I take the blue room?”
The thought circled her mind like a vulture.
It would have been warm.
There would have been a fire lit by a maid.
There would have been a tray of hot tea and buttered toast.
She felt pathetic.
This wasn’t a grand, defiant stand.
It was a temper tantrum that had landed her in a freezing rat-infested shack.
She listened to the wind claw at the thatched roof and the terrifying scurrying sounds in the walls.
She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting a wave of profound, nauseating regret.
When the pale, watery light of dawn finally broke through the filthy windowpanes, Megan was stiff, her joints aching as if she had been beaten.
She sat up.
Her breath plumed white in the air.
She needed a fire.
She walked over to the stone hearth.
It was choked with old, damp ashes and the skeletal remains of a dead starling.
She stared at it.
She had never lit a fire in her 24 years of life.
She had rung a bell and a fire had appeared.
Megan knelt in the dirt.
She found a rusted iron bucket and began scooping out the vile, wet ash with her bare, gloveless hands.
The soot caked under her nails, black and greasy.
She found a few dry logs stacked in the corner, covered in cobwebs.
She carried them over, the rough bark scraping against the delicate skin of her inner arm, leaving angry, red welts.
She found a tin box of sulfur matches on the mantelpiece.
They were damp.
She struck one.
It crumbled.
She struck a second.
It hissed, smoked, and died.
“Mhm, please,” she whispered.
Her voice was raspy, unused.
“Just please.”
She struck a third, pressing so hard the wooden stick snapped, driving a sharp splinter deep into the fleshy base of her thumb.
Megan gasped, dropping the pieces.
A bead of bright red blood welled up, stark against the black soot coating her hand.
She stared at the blood.
It was a tiny injury, insignificant, but it broke something open her.
She let out a frustrated, guttural scream, kicking the pile of logs so hard her toes throbbed.
She sat back on her heels and wept.
Real, hot tears that cut tracks through the dirt on her face.
She cried for the splinter.
She cried for the cold.
She cried for the silk sheets she had left behind, and the husband who hadn’t even bothered to watch her walk away.
10 minutes later, the tears stopped.
The cold remained.
Megan wiped her nose on the expensive velvet sleeve of her dress, ruining the fabric entirely.
She pulled the splinter out with her teeth, tasting the sharp, metallic tang of her own blood.
She tried again.
She took a handful of dry straw from the mattress, layered it under the smallest twig she could find, and struck a fourth match.
It caught.
A tiny, fragile tongue of yellow flame licked the straw.
Megan dropped to her stomach, blowing on it gently, coaxing it, praying to it.
The twigs popped.
The flame grew.
When the fire finally roared to life, casting a harsh, flickering light against the stone walls, Megan sat back.
Her hands were bleeding and black.
Her dress was ruined.
Her hair was falling out of its pins in a greasy, tangled mess.
She held her trembling hands out to the heat.
It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
For the first time since Greg had spoken those words in the bedroom, Megan felt a strange, terrifying sensation bloom in her chest.
It wasn’t happiness.
It was ownership.
This fire was hers.
The warmth was hers.
She stood up, walked to the corner, and began to aggressively unhook the tight, restrictive corset beneath her dress.
She struggled with the laces, pulling and tearing until the heavy garment fell to the floor like a dead weight.
She took a deep, unrestricted breath, her ribs expanding fully for the first time in years.
She found an old, oversized knitted sweater hanging on a nail by the door, likely Mr.
Smith’s.
It smelled of sheep and old pipe tobacco.
She pulled it on over her shift.
It was heavy, scratchy, and wonderfully warm.
She wasn’t a duchess anymore.
She was just a woman trying to stay warm, and surprisingly that thought didn’t kill her.
Greg sat of the long mahogany dining table, staring at a silver platter of poached eggs.
He had lost his appetite.
“The drafts in this house are simply unforgivable Greg.”
Brenda sat to his right, wrapped in a thick, fur-lined dressing gown.
She was pouting.
She had been pouting for 3 days.
The southern light in the master suite was beautiful, yes, but the windows rattled in the wind, and the fireplace smoked if the wind blew from the east.
“I shall have the glazier look at it.”
Greg murmured, taking a sip of black coffee.
It was lukewarm.
He frowned.
3 days.
It had been 3 days since Megan had walked out of the master suite.
Greg had assumed she was sulking in the blue room.
He had expected a note, a tearful plea slid under his study door, a demand for a larger allowance, perhaps, or a threat to write to her brother in the city.
He had not expected complete, resounding silence.
Yesterday he had finally asked his valet, “Is Megan finding the guest wing agreeable?”
The valet had cleared his throat, a nervous, raspy sound.
“Megan is not in the guest wing, sir.
She has taken up residence in the old groundskeeper’s cottage.”
Greg had frozen.
“The cottage?
It doesn’t even have a functioning pump.”
“Yes, sir.”
Greg rubbed his temples now, listening to Brenda complain about the starch in the linens.
He felt a sharp prickle of irritation.
This was exactly like Megan.
Always finding the most inconvenient, dramatic way to make a point without saying a single word.
She was trying to embarrass him.
She wanted the servants to whisper.
She wanted to play the martyr, freezing in the mud, so he would feel guilty and beg her to come back inside.
Well, he wouldn’t beg.
But he couldn’t have his wife living like a feral animal on the edge of the property.
The optics were disastrous.
If word got out to the neighboring estates, he would be a laughingstock, a duke who couldn’t even manage his own household.
Greg threw his linen napkin onto the table.
Excuse me, my dear.
I have matters to attend to.
Brenda sighed loudly, but Greg was already walking out.
He didn’t call for a carriage.
It was only a half mile walk across the grounds.
He wore his heavy wool overcoat and his finest leather riding boots.
The walk was miserable.
The ground was saturated from days of freezing rain.
By the time Greg reached the tree line, his boots were caked in thick gray mud, ruining the immaculate polish.
His irritation hardened into a cold anger.
Megan would apologize for this.
He would march her back to the guest wing, lock the door if he had to, and put an end to this ridiculous pantomime.
He approached the cottage.
Thin gray smoke was curling from the chimney.
Greg stepped onto the rotting porch and banged his gloved fist against the heavy oak door.
Megan, open this door.
Silence.
Then, the sound of heavy footsteps.
The door creaked open.
Greg had prepared a speech.
He had prepared cold, cutting words about duty, reputation, and childish tantrums.
The words died in his throat.
Megan stood in the doorway.
She was wearing a man’s filthy oversized sweater that swallowed her frame.
Her dark hair was braided in a single messy plait down her back.
There was a smudge of black soot across her cheekbone and her hands Her hands were ruined.
They were red, raw, and calloused.
Dirt packed deep beneath the nails.
But it wasn’t her appearance that stopped him.
It was her eyes.
Greg had expected to see red swollen eyes.
He had expected to see misery, defiance, or perhaps a desperate lingering hope that he had come to fetch her back to their bed.
He saw none of that.
Megan looked at him.
She didn’t glare.
She didn’t shrink back.
She looked at him with the mild blank expression of someone who has just been interrupted while reading a slightly uninteresting book.
Greg she said.
Her voice was steady, lacking any of the nervous tremor he was accustomed to.
You’re tracking mud onto my porch.
Greg blinked, looking down at his ruined boots, then back up at her.
Megan this farce ends today.
You look like a beggar.
Gather your things.
You are returning to the house.
Megan leaned against the doorframe.
She crossed her arms over the bulky sweater.
No.
The refusal was so quiet, so devoid of heat, that Greg actually took a step back.
Excuse me?
No.
She repeated.
I’m not returning to the house.
You are my wife.
Greg snapped, his voice rising, betraying a crack in his aristocratic veneer.
You will not live in a hovel like a stray dog.
Do you have any idea how this looks?
It looks like you gave my bedroom to your mistress, Megan said evenly.
I’m not sure how you me to dress it up for the neighbors.
Perhaps you could tell them I’ve developed a sudden overwhelming passion for agriculture.”
Greg stared at her.
He felt a sudden bizarre sense of vertigo.
This wasn’t Megan.
The Megan he knew was soft, anxious, always trying to anticipate his moods, always apologizing for taking up space.
This woman, smelling of wood smoke and damp earth, was a stranger.
“It is freezing out here,” Greg said, trying to regain control.
“You have no servants, no hot water.”
“I boiled water this morning,” Megan said.
She uncrossed her arms and held up a battered tin cup.
“I made tea.
It tastes faintly of rust, but it’s hot.
Would you like some?”
It was a genuine offer.
That was the most infuriating part.
It wasn’t sarcasm.
She was offering him a rusty cup of tea with the polite detachment of a host humoring an uninvited peddler.
“I don’t want your damn tea,” Greg growled.
“Suit yourself,” Megan said.
She took a sip from the cup.
“If there’s nothing else, Greg, I have potatoes to peel.
Good day.”
Before he could formulate a response, she stepped back and shut the heavy oak door in his face.
The latch clicked into place.
Greg stood on the rotting porch, the freezing wind whipping at his heavy coat.
He stared at the closed door, his mind entirely blank.
He had come here to command his wife.
Instead, he felt an uncomfortable icy sensation settling in the pit of his stomach.
A terrifying realization that he had walked into a room expecting to find a caged bird and found that the cage was empty and the bird had grown teeth.
The potatoes were ancient.
They lay at the bottom of a burlap sack Megan had dragged from the cottage’s root cellar, sporting pale ghostly sprouts that looked like desperate grasping fingers.
It had been 4 days since she’d eaten anything but the hard stale heel of a loaf of bread left in Mr.
Smith’s pantry.
The brittle twigs and rotted floorboards she had been burning wouldn’t last the week and the temperature was dropping.
I’ve got your winter peat.
“You’re not Mr.
Smith,” he stated.
“Mr.
Mr.
Smith passed away 3 years ago,” Megan said.
“sir?”
he asked, taking a quick stumbling step backward.
“I Apologies, sir.
I didn’t know.
I thought “Do not call me that,” Megan said.
“My name is Megan.”
The man swallowed.
“I’m Dan, ma’am.
Are you lost?”
“I am exactly where I intend to be,” Megan said.
“Are you returning to the village, Dan?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Megan reached into the pocket of her heavy wool skirt.
I can’t take that, ma’am.
That’s worth more than my whole cart.
“I don’t want money.”
Megan said.
“I want that sack of peat.
I desperately need salt.”
Greg looked at the sapphire, then at Megan’s cracked, bleeding knuckles.
He didn’t ask questions.
“I’ll have to go to the village.”
He said slowly.
“It’ll take an hour.”
“I’ll be here.”
Megan said.
“Leave the peat.”
Greg nodded once, sharply, and turned away, walking briskly toward the rutted wagon path.
She didn’t cry.
The sound turned Greg’s stomach.
“The seamstress is simply incompetent, Greg,” Brenda was saying.
“I specifically requested the bodice of the emerald silk to be lowered an inch.
I refuse to look like a vicar’s wife at the hunt ball.”
Greg stared at the mutilated quail.
“Have her redo it.”
“She complains about the timeline.
The insolence of the staff here is really quite staggering.”
Greg reached for his crystal goblet of claret.
“I boiled water this morning.”
Megan’s voice, flat and unbothered, echoed in his skull.
Brenda’s voice sharpened, slicing through his thoughts.
You haven’t touched your food.
He didn’t wait for her response.
He walked out of the dining room, the heavy double doors shutting behind him, cutting off the smell of the roasted meat and the cloying scent of Brenda’s heavy rosewater perfume.
He went to his study, but he didn’t sit at his desk.
He couldn’t see the cottage, but he knew it was there.
Why wasn’t she freezing?
Why wasn’t she starving?
An ugly gnawing sensation chewed at Greg’s ribs.
It wasn’t guilt.
Greg didn’t do guilt.
Megan’s continued existence in that hovel was a public declaration of his irrelevance.
He didn’t carry a lantern.
It wasn’t burning the pathetic twigs he had expected.
Where in God’s name had she gotten salted pork?
The look on her face wasn’t the polite, measured satisfaction she displayed at the manor’s dining table.
It didn’t reach her eyes like a polite society grin.
Greg realized with a sickening jolt that he hadn’t seen her smile like that in three years of marriage.
She hadn’t smiled at his jokes.
She hadn’t smiled when he bought her diamonds.
Greg’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, the leather of his gloves creaking in the cold.
He stepped back from the window, the image of Megan’s fire-lit face burning into his retina.
He didn’t want her back because he loved her.
She didn’t hate it.
I can’t, ma’am.
It’s worth more than the peat, you know that.
It’s not the stone.
He shifted his weight, glancing nervously over his shoulder toward the distant iron wrought gates of the duke’s estate.
He didn’t make a speech.
He hadn’t come down to scream at her.
He hadn’t dragged her out by her hair.
He knew she wouldn’t beg, so he was ensuring she would starve.
“I see.”
Megan said.
Her voice didn’t shake.
“I’ve got five bairns, ma’am.
I can’t help you.
They’re terrified of him.”
“I understand, Greg.”
Megan said softly.
“You must protect your family.”
Greg reached behind the wooden bench.
It landed in the mud at Megan’s feet with a wet thud.
“God preserve you, ma’am.”
He whispered.
“You arrogant, pathetic man.”
she whispered to the glass.
She didn’t stop.
It wasn’t a gentle, picturesque flurry.
She had tried to go out for more, but the snow was waist-deep and her legs simply wouldn’t hold her.
She couldn’t feel her feet anymore.
She’s conserving fuel, he told himself.
She’s sitting in the dark to spite me.
He had ensured she couldn’t buy food.
But what if she couldn’t force the door open?
He didn’t want her dead.
He didn’t call for his valet.
She didn’t open her eyes.
She didn’t groan.
His money, his title, his grand manor on the hill, none of it mattered in the face of the rattling shallow breaths escaping his wife’s blue lips.
The sudden warmth made his frozen skin burn with excruciating prickling agony, but he didn’t stop.
“Mrs.
Hughes!”
Greg roared.
“Fetch the physician.
Bring every heavy blanket in this house to the master suite.”
The satrap The housekeeper, a formidable woman who had never run a day in her life, took one look at the gray, limp hand dangling from the bundle in the duke’s arms and sprinted toward the kitchen stairs.
“Greg!”
Brenda gasped, spinning around.
You’re ruining the persian rug.
It wasn’t just disgust for her, it was a suffocating, violent loathing for himself.
Greg didn’t watch her go.
He didn’t care.
He listened to Megan’s chest, his expression grim, and ordered mustard plasters and spoonfuls of warm broth to be forced past her blue lips.
Megan’s eyelashes fluttered.
Greg’s hand stopped inches from her skin.
She’s gone.
She didn’t look relieved.
“You were dying.”
Greg said softly.
“You would not have survived the night.”
“It was mine.”
Megan said, closing her eyes.
“It was the only thing that was mine.”
“And you couldn’t even let me have that.”
Recovery was a slow, humiliating process.
She sat by the fire in a heavy velvet day dress, reading a book of poetry she wasn’t absorbing.
“You are looking well,” Greg said, taking a seat in the chair opposite hers.
“I am surviving,” Megan replied, not looking up from her book.
“I’ve drafted a new household budget.
I’ve also instructed Mrs.
Hughes that you are to have final approval over all domestic staffing and menus.”
He was offering her the keys to the kingdom.
“Do you think this is a negotiation, Greg?”
she asked quietly.
“I am trying to make amends,” he said, his voice tightening defensively.
“I behaved poorly.
This is your house.”
“You locked me out in the snow,” Megan stated.
It wasn’t an accusation.
“You sent Mr.
You only dragged me out of that cottage because a dead wife is a social inconvenience you couldn’t afford.
“That is not entirely true,” Greg snapped, leaning forward.
“I was I was out of my mind with worry when the smoke stopped.
You must believe me.”
“I don’t care what you were,” Megan said.
“I don’t care about your worry.
I don’t care about your guilt.
And I certainly do not care about your money.”
She stood up.
“We are bound by the church and the law,” Megan said, her back to him.
“I cannot divorce you.
We are chained together, Greg.”
She turned around to face him.
“But I will never share a bed with you again,” she said clearly.
“I will never attend a social function on your arm unless it is absolutely necessary for the preservation of the estate’s standing.
You will not enter my chambers without my explicit invitation, which I assure you will never come.”
Greg stared at her.
“You are my wife.
You are condemning us both to a ghost marriage.”
“You condemned us the day you brought Brenda into this house,” Megan replied instantly.
“I am simply setting the terms of the aftermath.
And what if I refuse?”
Greg asked, a flash of his old commanding temper flaring in his eyes.
“What if I demand you fulfill your duties?”
Megan smiled.
It was a cold, sharp thing that didn’t touch her eyes.
“You can demand whatever you like, Greg, but you know exactly what I am capable of surviving.
You know I will walk out that door into the mud and freeze to death before I let you control me again.”
She tilted her head, her gaze pinning him to the chair.
“You no longer have any leverage.
I’m not afraid of the cold.
I’m not afraid of pain.
I’m certainly not afraid of you.”
Greg looked into her eyes saw the absolute truth.
“As you wish, Megan.”
He whispered.
Megan didn’t win back her husband’s heart.
If Megan’s cold, calculated revenge gave you chills, hit that like button right now.
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THE END
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Disclaimer
This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. If you would like to share your story, please send it to [email protected].
