My Husband Moved His Mistress Into My Home — So I Burned His Estate To The Ground
Part 1
The rain lashed against the towering mullioned windows of the grand drawing room.
I sat rigidly upon the damask sofa, keeping my spine perfectly straight.
My dark eyes were fixed upon my husband, Greg.
He stood by the marble fireplace with a young, ash-blonde woman clinging to his arm.
Her name was Heather.
She possessed a fragile beauty that masked an insatiable ambition.
I did not scream or throw the fragile teacup in my lap.
I simply stared, allowing the heavy silence to stretch until it threatened to snap.
“I trust you understand the arrangement, Megan,” Greg said.
His voice carried the lazy drawl that had once charmed me.
He did not even have the decency to look ashamed.
Instead, he tipped his chin upward in an expression of absolute entitlement.
“Heather is delicate and requires the restorative peace of the countryside,” he continued.
“She will be staying with us.”
My gaze flicked to the young woman.
She refused to meet my eyes, pretending to be fascinated by the vaulted ceiling.
I saw the smirk playing at the corners of her painted lips.
“Staying with us,” I repeated, my voice a soft murmur.
“Indeed,” Greg replied, waving a careless hand.
“She shall take the master suite in the south wing.”
He casually added that I would relocate my things to the north wing by tomorrow evening.
The sheer audacity of the command sucked the oxygen from the vast room.
The master suite had been my sanctuary for seven years.
The north wing, by contrast, was drafty and historically reserved for forgotten relatives.
“You are evicting me from my own bedchambers to house your mistress,” I stated.
His handsome face darkened into a scowl.
He despised it when I spoke plainly because it reminded him of my origins.
“You are my wife, and you shall obey my directives within my house,” he snapped.
A phantom blow struck my chest.
I forcefully pushed the pain down into the dark vaults of my mind.
He was right about one thing.
I had not been born into the aristocracy.
I was the only daughter of a fiercely intelligent, self-made magnate.
Seven years ago, Greg’s family had been drowning in a sea of gambling debts.
My dowry had paid off his debts and repaired the manor’s crumbling roof.
I had bought him, and he had given me seven years of progressive neglect.
“Your house, Greg?” I asked softly, setting my teacup down with a sharp clink.
“I seem to recall my father’s money purchasing the very slates above your head.”
“How fiercely middle-class of you to bring up coin,” he sneered.
“The estate is mine by blood and birthright.”
He ordered me to move to the north wing and treat Heather with courtesy.
If I could not manage that, he threatened to have me removed to a distant cottage.
Heather finally looked at me, her blue eyes wide with artificial innocence.
“Oh, I do so hope we can be friends,” she simpered.
I stood up slowly and smoothed the heavy emerald silk of my skirt.
My face was an unreadable mask of carved ivory.
I looked at my husband and saw the utter foolishness of a man who believed a title made him invulnerable.
“I understand you perfectly, Greg,” I said.
I turned my gaze to the mistress and welcomed her to the manor.
Without another word, I swept from the room.
As the heavy oak doors closed behind me, I heard his bark of laughter.
My loyal maid, Brenda, was waiting in the grand hallway.
Her face was pale, having undoubtedly heard the raised voices.
She whispered her outrage, tears springing to her eyes on my behalf.
“Tears are a luxury for the powerless, Brenda,” I murmured.
My heart was rapidly calcifying into something terribly dangerous.
Greg believed he had won because he held the societal power.
He had forgotten who actually held the keys to the vault.
By the spring, the manor had been transformed into a garish monument to Heather’s vanity.
Greg had given her complete free reign over the estate’s domestic affairs.
The elegant tapestries were replaced with imported wallpapers in blinding shades of rose.
The grand dining room hosted raucous weekend parties filled with loud, coarse individuals.
Through it all, I remained a ghost in my own home.
I inhabited the north wing in stoic silence.
Greg interpreted my silence as defeat.
He could not have been more catastrophically wrong.
While they danced until dawn, I was meticulously orchestrating a massive financial hemorrhage.
My father’s lawyer confirmed I possessed the legal right to liquidate the trust assets.
We systematically sold off the massive shares at peak market prices.
The cash was instantly converted into gold bars.
My trusted estate manager moved the crates via night carts into the old smugglers’ cellars.
We accumulated nearly two tons of bullion over eight months.
The final nail in Greg’s financial coffin arrived when Heather demanded to wear my family’s diamond tiara.
She wanted to wear it to their upcoming midsummer masquerade ball.
It was a calculated strike designed to finally break me.
I agreed with a smooth, silken purr.
The day of the ball arrived on a wave of suffocating July heat.
Dozens of extra servants polished the silver and prepared massive feasts.
In the north wing, Brenda laced me into a practical dark traveling gown.
She confirmed the carriage was waiting and the gold was already secured on a ship.
Twilight descended, painting the heavy clouds in bruised shades of purple.
The first carriages arrived, their lanterns glowing like fireflies.
Down in the great ballroom, the orchestra began to play a sweeping waltz.
I checked the small gold pocket watch pinned to my bodice.
It was time for Brenda to leave via the back stairs.
I told her I was going to rewrite history.
Alone in the silent corridors, I picked up a leather satchel.
Inside were heavy glass bottles of premium paraffin oil and a box of Lucifer matches.
I splashed the foul-smelling liquid over the heavy velvet drapes in the grand library.
I moved to the portrait gallery, dousing the wooden floorboards beneath the haughty faces.
I locked the heavy iron fire doors that separated the main house from the ballroom vestibule.
The guests would easily escape through the French doors, but the inferno would not reach them too quickly.
My final destination was the soaring three-story grand foyer.
The fumes of the oil hung heavy in the humid air.
I thought of the millions my father had poured into this sinkhole.
I thought of Heather twirling in the ballroom, wearing my diamonds.
I reached into my satchel and retrieved the box of matches.
I pulled a single wooden match from the box.
Thunder rumbled ominously, shaking the glass in the window panes.
I struck the match against the cold stone fireplace, watching the flame flare to life.
