Sunday, May 19, 2013

(#Thirty-one: Revelations) Wuthering Nights: Inspired by Wuthering Heights




Chapter Thirty-one
Revelations
    Once Kate heard about the trouble in Annabelle’s marriage, Kate decided it was time to speak to Heath, alone.
    Kate was rugged up in her usual riding gear and had the car keys in her hand, making a rattling noise which woke her sleeping husband. She’d woken up early and told Edmund that she was going for a walk.
   ‘At six in the morning, darling?’ he asked sleepily. ‘Should you really be going out in your condition? The air is like ice outside.’
   ‘Of course,’ Kate said. ‘I have the car. I intend to walk the easy path. It’s my new regime,’ she said, sarcastically. ‘Besides, exercise is good for the baby. Now go back to sleep…darling,’ she added as an afterthought.
    Kate pulled on her overcoat and looked into the mirror. At eighteen, when Kate had married Edmund, she’d felt older than her years. Now she was barely twenty-one and she had never told Heath why she had married Edmund so quickly; never told Heath why the pictures hadn’t been splashed all over the papers; why the marriage hadn’t been announced. He probably guessed and didn’t care. There were so many mistakes that had been made and more than enough time to put them right, even if somebody got hurt in the process. They were meant to be together and that was that. She had telephoned him, asked him to meet her.
    When Heath arrived at the glass house, having pulled up in one of his sleek sports cars, Kate knew she had to gauge his behaviour.
    She moved to touch him but he pulled away and turned his face. Kate wondered if he had already fed that morning on Magenta or… if his tastes had become more refined and… diverse. Kate would have offered her blood to him there and then if she’d felt it would fix the situation between them and not harm the baby. 
    ‘Why did you want to meet me here Kate?’ Heath asked in a weary tone. Heath noticed her messed up hair. 
    ‘Look at you. You’ve just got out of Hunt’s bed. I never thought I’d see the day…’
    ‘Heath…he’s my husband…If it makes you feel any better, we have separate bedrooms.’
    Heath’s eyes combed her face, her body, her round belly hidden under the coat. Kate must  have thought he was really stupid.
    ‘Why do you need to talk to me when you’ve got him?’
    ‘I needed to see you again.’
     Kate touched his hand, and all the emotions were like before. She could not deny this passion and Kate wondered if Heath felt the same.
    If he did, he didn’t show it.
    ‘I’m asking you not to…hurt Annabelle. She’s been a good sister-in-law to me, a good friend to us both.’
    ‘Oh, this is rich, sticking up for the other woman. What do you call this then? I’m sure if she knew we were meeting in secret she’d be thrilled,’ Heath added sarcastically. Then he moved towards Kate. At first, it seemed like he was going to kiss her. Instead, he was distracted by the baby’s heart beat and placed his hands over his ears.
   ‘Having a baby…makes it impossible for me to leave now. It does not mean I love you less.’
    Heath looked at her, ‘And you brought me here to tell me that? As if I didn’t already know? How could you Kate? You should have waited for me. I just wanted proof that Harrison had lied, and then nothing would have kept me away from you.’
    ‘I…I know,’ Kate said, weeping.
    He was so angry he moved to shove her, but thought better of it, though she didn’t resist his touch or step back. Instead he moved in close, swayed almost as if he was going to kiss her. Kate moved towards him at the same time.
    ‘Now, we meet as equals, Mrs Hunt,’ Heath said. ‘Now you get to be the jealous one.’
     That was the problem. Heath had all but ignored her since the night after the dinner party.  The closeness of her, the nearness of her almost touch, was enough to set him off. His mouth watered, his teeth sharpened. Kate stumbled and moved to sit down.
    ‘A fine mess we have made of our lives,’ she whispered. She looked at Heath and realized her love for him was like the air that surrounded them, ever-changing but eternal, always. Her love for Heath transcended time and space and even themselves. She couldn’t believe it had been so fragile, that she had been foolish enough to believe it would survive betrayal. Now Heath was married to another and gone forever.
    Kate moved to stand up but sat down again, quickly.
    ‘Are you alright?’ Heath asked, suddenly spooked.
    ‘Yes, I’m…I’m just upset, that is all. Please, Heath, don’t go, please come. Put your arms around me one last time. I…I would give up Hunt if only you’d ask me to.’
    And it was then, that Heath realized he’d finally gotten to her.
    Now was his chance.
    ‘You must be kidding,’ Heath said. ‘Do you really think I’d want you now? About to give birth to another man’s child…’
    ‘I wish it were your child,’ Kate said.
    ‘Well, it isn’t,’ Heath said, ‘and I don’t want you,’ he lied.
    Kate withdrew her hand.
    ‘Please don’t be like that.’
    ‘It was you, Kate, with all of your stupid airs and graces, the minute you were poisoned by the Hunts, you came to believe yourself one of them, better than the rest of us, better than me with my eternal…curse. I longed for immortality once but only to share it with you.
    ‘Share it with me now…’
    ‘You’d have to be joking. You’re not thinking straight in your…condition. You are so selfish you can’t even put your child first.’
     ‘Not now…later, after the baby is born.’
     ‘Forget it. No matter how miserable you are, you belong to him now…’
    ‘Never...’
    ‘And I have made another choice…’
    ‘I don’t believe you.’
    ‘Oh, I could never lie to you and tell you I love Annabelle. I don’t even like her, though I’ve tried hard enough. But hating you, Kate…is almost as good as loving you and how I have wished for this moment, to see you as you really are…empty and alone but for your selfish choices.’
     ‘It was not selfish, Heath. I couldn’t find you.’
     ‘You should have looked harder.’
     ‘I did. But I was lied to…Harrison convinced me you no longer lived.’
     ‘Well, he was wrong and he’s always plotted against us. You were foolish to believe him in the first place.’ Heath said, the morning’s gorge from the blood bank fresh in his veins. He felt empowered. There was strength in such a lack of desire. 
     ‘It was your fault too,’ Kate said, ‘for leaving me, for doubting us.’
      Heath remained silent. ‘Harrison swore we were…blood relations…’
    Kate looked shocked.
    ‘But it is not true. Here,’ Heath said, he unfolded a paper from his pocket. ‘There is no connection. I also spoke to my…mother. It appears my biological father disappeared one night after drinking… the blood of others. He has not been sighted since. Heath pulled out his original birth certificate, written in Spanish. The date was clear.
     ‘I’m a year older than I thought.’
     ‘Oh Heath, what have we done?’
     ‘If I did wrong, we both did wrong and now you are paying for it. Revenge is sweet.’
     ‘Really? Greta used to say revenge is a dish best served cold.’
     ‘Well, she always had a cliché at the ready.’
      Both the lovers were spent in their argument.
      ‘Please…Heath… Don’t do anything you will regret.’
      ‘Like what? Like leaving Annabelle? No, Annabelle will go of her own accord just like all the women in this family. I’m surprised it has taken her this long to work out that I only married her to hurt you and get my hands on The Grange.’
     ‘I don’t believe that. Annabelle loves you. She won’t go anywhere unless you force her to.’
    ‘She’s left me once already. You really think you can control all our lives Kate? I despise you for marrying Hunt. I despise you for not believing in me enough to wait.’
     ‘I… never stopped believing in you. I never stopped loving you. I wanted to do what was best for… Katarina.’
     ‘And yet you married another.’
      ‘I was told you’d gone forever!’
     ‘Mmm… a convenient excuse. How could you ever be with another man?’ Heath spat.
     ‘Like I said, he’s my husband.’
      ‘I was your husband.’
      ‘I know, but we were so young, I thought you’d changed your mind, abandoned me...’
      ‘Stop, stop crying. This is not the Kate I wish to see.’
      ‘It is the one you created. I have never stopped loving you…will never stop loving you Heath,’ Kate said as she stood up, ‘but I think this argument is going nowhere... Edmund…’
     ‘Ah yes, the wonderful Hunt…’
     ‘Don’t…be jealous. He has never taken your place.’
     ‘That’s exactly what he has done,’ Heath laughed bitterly. 
      ‘When I first saw you, Heath, I loved you. It is almost as if we are the one soul and that doesn’t change, no matter what. After the baby is born I want to be with you, forever.’
       Kate stood in the open doorway of the glass house as the wind began to howl and swept up her hair. ‘I can see there is no point in continuing to discuss this until then…’
      ‘You sound just like him…’
      ‘And you have become so much worse, swindling Harrison out of his own fortune…marrying my sister-in-law to hurt me…’
      ‘Your brother was a vicious drunk and a liar. He deserved it. Besides, it wasn’t a difficult thing to accomplish…and Annabelle knew what she was getting herself into.’
       ‘And making his child your own…’
       ‘Hinton needed a home after he was…abandoned by his own father…’
       ‘A home? You sent him to boarding school…’
       ‘From where he shall return once he is…educated…’
       ‘Educated enough to run wild like you and I did? I could never bear to let my child be that far away from me… And as for Annabelle, I’ve seen the scars on her wrist where you bit her…’
      ‘She asked me to…she thinks blood sucking is…more of a kink and less of a need.’ 
      Kate shook her head. ‘I can see we’re getting nowhere with this conversation.’
     ‘Everything that went wrong Kate, we did to each other. If you had just waited…if you had just believed in me like you promised you would…we said we’d never abandon one another…’
    ‘You abandoned me…’
    ‘I never stopped loving you…’
    ‘…Until now.’
    ‘You married another…’
    ‘So did you.’
    Heath shook his head, ‘To make you pay…’
    ‘I must go…’
    ‘Yes,’ Heath said, ‘your husband must miss you.’
     ‘I see you are determined to stay with Annabelle and ruin all our lives.’
     Heath raised an eyebrow angrily, ‘She is my wife.’ 
     ‘Just don’t hurt her,’ Kate said as she walked away. She did not wish to tell him the full truth about their child tonight. It had been a mistake to call him. Heath was left in the dark once again; his vow of revenge seemed hollow and pointless.