WUTHERING BITES

Chapter Eleven: Remember

Chapter Eleven

Remember

Hinton was surprised that the lights were still on in the drawing room as he entered the house. The dog had slept by the fire until everyone else had gone to sleep. Then, he'd done as usual and wandered upstairs to lie at the foot of his master's bed.

The boy had removed his coat; he wore the latest sneakers and low rise jeans. Hinton wandered into the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat. He hoped Greta had left something since. He was very hungry after hours of clubbing in Soho. He was often photographed there with various girlfriends, but lately, his shallow existence had begun to bother him. Perhaps he was more like his adopted father than he thought. The family photographs that filled the drawing room told barely half the story of its dysfunction.

Hinton shook his head at the pictures on the wall as he climbed the stairs. It was funny to him that Heath could give himself airs and graces but no one knew where he came from either. Heath could use the title bestowed upon him for "services to the economy" but that didn't make him a Lord, not in Hinton's eyes. He couldn't have cared less about titles but he thought it almost funny that he had to practically ask permission to live in his own house when his sister had more rights to it than Heath (who only owned the house because of a swindle...) but that was another story.

The boy was aware there were two sides to the family history. In the first version, Heath had "saved" him as a child from a vicious beating by his drunkard brother-in-law, Harrison. The other was contained in an apologetic note from Harrison years later. Truth lay somewhere in between. One thing Hinton knew for sure; Heath cheated Harrison out of his own home during a game of high-stakes poker.

There are always more sides to a story but this was the particular side that Hinton chose to believe. Before the bet, papers had been signed. Heath, the foundling child, had risen to become the rightful owner of Hareton Hall. Hinton grimaced in the mirror as he cleaned his teeth and splashed his face. His image was hazy with condensation. He rubbed the mirror with a towel and wiped his face dry. Hinton turned off the light and walked quietly to his room. Heath's light was on. As usual Hinton didn't bother to say goodnight. Instead, he flopped on his own bed fully clothed.

Heath wasn't so bad. He'd been more of a father than Harrison and treated him more like a biological son than the father he'd never met. Besides, unless he won the annual Art Prize at his college, he had nowhere else to go.

Hinton had flicked on the television news in his bedroom and was chugging orange juice and eating what was left of some roasted chicken, when he heard a piercing screech that made him walk into the hallway.

Doors flung open and Heath's dog bounded out of the main bedroom towards a room with blazing light under the door; a room that had never been used since his teenage aunt had inhabited it more than twenty years ago.

A dark-haired girl flung open the door and stood on the landing, looking pale and frightened in the half light. Hinton Spencer froze on the spot.

'Who are you?'

'I'm... I'm Katarina Hunt. You must be...'

'Hinton, your...cousin by marriage, for all intents and purposes. I...I was adopted. Are you okay?'

'I don't know... I think I will be. Someone tried to get into my room...'

The boy, mesmerized by her white skin and red lips, stared at her longer than was necessary, then apologized, adding, 'sorry...it's just that you are identical to my...adopted Aunt...' He gestured to Kate's picture on the wall.