Unraveled by Her (2 page)

But if Mrs. Hatch isn't my kidnapper, then who is?

Surely not Georgiana!

Like practically everyone in the world, I recall exactly where I was when the news of the tragedy was first made public.

It was a Monday morning in November and FedEx had just delivered the first printed copy of my very first published book, an autobiography I ghosted for a legendary Hollywood star, now long past her prime but still hauntingly beautiful.

When I first held the book in my hands, saw my name in print, my photograph on the inside of the jacket, my initial euphoric response was to call Mom—only to have her answer the phone in floods of tears.

When she told me the news about Lady Georgiana, my first thought was that this must be a prank, a viral rumor that somehow got to Mom. Then I switched on the TV, and there, “She”—Lady Georgiana's favorite song—played in the background of a reverential montage of iconic images; Georgiana at the Met Ball, Georgiana sun-kissed and laughing on the deck of a yacht, Georgiana in her couture Chanel bridal gown—Lady Georgiana Hartwell, the woman every man wanted to have, the woman every woman wanted to be.

After the montage ended, there was Robert, standing tall outside Hartwell Castle, the dramatic Windsor Castle replica built on Long Island decades ago by an eccentric English lord with money to burn. While armies of cameramen and photographers were kept at bay by Robert's security force and by the moat, in a resonant yet expressionless voice, magnified by the battery of microphones in the vicinity, Robert made the statement that brought tears to many who heard it that day.

“Three days ago, my beloved wife, the unique, the extraordinary Lady Georgiana Hartwell, disappeared from our home here at Hartwell Castle. The last person to see Georgiana alive witnessed her diving into Hartwell Lake, as was often her custom. According to the eyewitness, she wore a purple swimsuit and seemed her regular bright and vivacious self.

“At first, I was optimistic that after her swim, she had gone for a run in Hartwell Woods and would soon be home again. However, after she did not return, I began to fear that her disappearance might be due to more sinister forces. But, not wishing news of it to leak out to the public prematurely or to alienate a possible kidnapper, I did not immediately report it to the police.

“Instead, while I waited for a ransom demand to materialize, I spearheaded my own extensive search led by a handpicked team of crack private investigators, trained sniffer dogs, and seasoned professional trackers who scoured the estate and miles of the surrounding countryside, but to no avail.

“Consequently, I reported my wife's disappearance to the police. And when I did, given the love and respect felt for her by tens of thousands throughout the world, it was agreed that until the exact nature of her disappearance was established, it should not be announced, so as not to cause universal distress.

“At that point, Hartwell Lake was dredged, but no trace of my wife was found. A second, even more extensive search of the estate produced nothing—no clues, and no hint of what might have happened to Georgiana.

“As a result, both I and the authorities continued to nurture the hope that she would ultimately be found alive.

“Now, however, I must report with great sorrow that when—in a last-ditch attempt to find my wife—Hartwell Lake was dredged for a second time yesterday afternoon, the badly decomposed body of a woman was found at the bottom of the lake.

“It was only when I examined the gold bracelet she was wearing, and realized that this was the bracelet I gave my wife on the occasion of our marriage, that I was able to identify the body of the woman found at the bottom of Hartwell Lake as that of my wife, Lady Georgiana Hartwell.”

Pandemonium broke out among the media, but Robert stood tall, his eyes veiled, his jaw set, his face impassive.

“I shall not be taking any questions, nor will I comment further on this very personal tragedy. I ask the media to respect my decision and my privacy. Thank you,” he said.

With that, he turned, squared his shoulders, and strode back into the castle.

When I watched that news report six years ago, I never dreamed for a second that I'd ever meet Robert Hartwell, or that I'd one day become a part of his life, and he the ultimate meaning of mine. To me, he was an Olympian god, a man from another planet, of which he was the supreme ruler, and which was far removed from a mere mortal like me—just as he was and always would be.

Since then, Robert had made his dramatic entrance into my life and stolen my heart, my body, my soul, and all my deepest emotions. Thinking back to that far-off day when I watched him on TV, I remind myself once more how blessed I am to have met him and to love and be loved by him. Not simply because he is six foot three, loving, generous, kind, and a sexual stud beyond all my most heated imaginings (he has a body that would have inspired Michelangelo to sculpt it), but because his macho dominance cloaks a practically supernatural capacity to understand me almost better than I understand myself, and far more than any other human being in this word has or ever will. And I love him for it more than I can express.

All that was ahead of me. But even then, as I watched the news report on Lady Georgiana's disappearance, along with a worldwide audience of millions, and the imposing figure of Robert Hartwell retreated behind the castle walls, I was overwhelmed by his dignity, his courage, his fortitude, his power, his almost godlike presence.

My little sister, Lindy, and I were glued to the TV some days later, when, with the grounds outside Hartwell Castle obliterated by literally thousands of tributes (most composed of purple flowers, purple stuffed animals, and framed odes to her charm, her beauty, her charity in dedicating herself to her Foundation for Mentally Disabled Children so selflessly), Lady Georgiana's purple casket was ferried by gondola across Hartwell Lake, accompanied by Robert and four pallbearers, then carried to the purple marble mausoleum, which, on Robert's instructions, teams of workmen had toiled night and day to construct with lightning speed.

After the casket was carried into the mausoleum, according to reports, a grief-stricken Robert placed a love letter, a bouquet of violets, and a gargantuan bottle of her bespoke fragrance, Georgiana Royale, inside it. And then Lady Georgiana's casket was sealed and placed on the marble funeral bier. The news anchor closed the coverage in somber tones: “And while her life has now been tragically snuffed out at the untimely age of thirty-five, the legend of Lady Georgiana Hartwell will live on forever.”

Rumor had it that after Lady Georgiana's interment in the mausoleum, only Robert ever entered it again, on the last day of every month, when he placed twelve fresh Lady Georgiana roses on the casket. To this day, they say that the casket rests like that of some ill-fated Egyptian pharaoh, on a purple marble bier in the main hall of the purple mausoleum.

I'm now in that purple mausoleum chained to the floor, blindfolded, wrapped in what feels like some kind of fur blanket, and with my hands cuffed behind my back.

So am I imprisoned here in the mausoleum, just feet away from Lady Georgiana Hartwell's body in its purple casket like some devoted handmaiden buried close to her queen?

Before I can take a stab at answering my own question, the earsplitting bark of a dog cuts into my thoughts. Then footsteps, one set heavy, the other dainty, come closer.

“The minx has slept for far too long,” the British woman says. “Let's wake her up and get her started on the work right away . . .”

Started? Work? Start work on what? And why?

“Can't face having her up and about yet. Let's finish listening to the birthday tape before we wake her,” the raspy-voiced woman replies.

The birthday tape . . .

Before I can work out whose birthday the raspy-voiced woman means, there is the click of a tape recorder being turned on.

And suddenly, I hear Robert's commanding voice ring out, “Present your breasts.”

I hear the clank of nipple clamps, followed by a sharp exhale of breath.

My breath, hissing through gritted teeth as I fight not to betray how much he is hurting me, and not to flout his instructions to remain silent, no matter what.

“Hands behind your back,” he orders, and brusque and harsh though his voice may be, it still makes me feel safe, even under these terrifying circumstances.

“Now close your eyes, my darling,” he decrees.

Then I hear his footsteps move away from me, only to return a few minutes later.

Even now, in the midst of this nightmare, I recall the heat of his body pressed hard against mine, and desire for him scorches through me.

“It's exactly ten minutes after midnight on the morning of your birthday. Open your eyes, my darling,” he says.

And I do, to be dazzled by a glitter of gold, emerald, and diamonds.

“Once Marlene Dietrich's, and now yours,” Robert announces gravely.

“He must have purchased that for her in Palm Beach,” the British woman says.

“I always told you that not bugging them when they were down there was a big-time mistake,” the second woman says.

“No time to dwell on past mistakes, Tammy . . . Time to introduce myself to our little prisoner, don't you think?”

With that, I'm lifted to a seated position, the blindfold is ripped from my eyes, and I recoil, not from the light but from the radiant smile of a woman.

“Good afternoon, Miranda . . . Lady Georgiana Hartwell, Robert's wife, at your service,” she says.

Chapter Two

I stare back at Georgiana, dumbfounded. Not just because she's still alive, but also because her once blonde hair is now red and is arranged in a style identical to mine, and her famous violet eyes are now my exact shade of blue.

“Of course I know, sweetie pie, I know what a shock this must be for you. But you ought to feel flattered, really flattered,” she says.

“Flattered that you stole my look?!”

“And you stole my husband. So now we're even,” she says.

“Stole your husband? I thought you were long dead and buried, not alive and well and a fucking kidnapper!” I yell as loud as I can, and scramble to my feet.

“ ‘A fucking kidnapper'? I'd advise you to remember that while sticks and stones may well break my bones, insults will never, ever hurt me,” she says, and wags her elegant index finger (which, like the rest of her fingers, is tipped with a purple stiletto-shaped acrylic nail) in front of my face.

I look daggers at her. She stares back at me and I see that her eyes are unnaturally bright and slightly crazy. More than just slightly. Is this really the famed and feted aristocrat whose pristinely pure façade hid the secret that she once worked in an S&M fantasy parlor, married Robert, then blackmailed him? What the hell does she want from me?

Until I can discover that, I study the former icon as dispassionately as I can. She is forty-one years old now but looks years younger. Now that the shock of her dramatically altered appearance is subsiding, I realize that she isn't exactly my doppelgänger after all. Our hair and eyes may be the same color, but her skin is far whiter, her lips thinner, and her eyes rounder than mine.

Her face is minimally made up and sports just pale pink lipstick, no mascara or eyeliner. She is regal in her purple tailored dress (Chanel, I'm sure), and chic. Despite how much I hate her for kidnapping me, I can't deny the fact that every movement she makes is graceful and alluring. And her posture is so erect that it's as if she is permanently balancing a crown on her head

I'm eminently glad that she isn't wearing any jewelry right now, otherwise she'd no doubt flash the
G.I.L.Y.
engraving (the initials that stand for “Georgiana, I Love You”) in my face. Robert always etched the letters into the jewelry he gifted her. Fortunately for me, today she wears only a heavy antique gold chain with an amethyst-encrusted miniature gold mirror hanging from it—­impossible to engrave with any initials, and certainly not the ones that normally graced her love tokens from Robert.

All of a sudden I feel faint, and the room begins to spin, but she steadies me.

“Sweetie, you don't seem to have found your feet yet. Let me get you a glass of water,” she says, in a low, throaty voice that is suddenly full of warmth. That warmth is far more alarming to me than her icy tone of a few minutes before.

She darts to the back of the mausoleum and through a door in the huge iron curtain that runs the width of the main chamber.

In the interim, I take in my surroundings. I am chained by my ankle to the floor in the main chamber of the mausoleum. In front of me is the purple funeral bier upon which the purple casket rests. To my relief, there are no red roses draped over it. It strikes me that perhaps the legend that Robert places roses on Georgiana's casket each and every month is just that: a legend conjured up by fans besotted with the story of the supposed fairy-tale romance. I catch myself feeling unaccountably relieved.

At the end of the mausoleum, there is a massive bank vault door, which leads outside to Hartwell Island and through which my kidnapper must have carried me, as it appears to be the only entrance.

Next to me is a white leather sectional with a glass coffee table in front of it. There is a glass dining table with six matching chairs; a crystal chandelier hangs above it, and a huge plasma TV hangs on one wall.

The mausoleum is comprised of a bedroom, an anteroom, two bathrooms, and a kitchen, and is fully furnished throughout.

I suddenly wonder why Robert installed plumbing in the mausoleum and furnished it as if it were almost a home. As a place to retreat to and be close to Georgiana? But why would he want to be close to her in spirit when she had proved conclusively that she was a fraud and blackmailer, determined to steal every cent of his vast fortune? He definitely would not. And at that thought, even in the midst of this current nightmare, I experience a moment of pure satisfaction.

But if Robert didn't commission the mausoleum to be furnished like this, then who did? I guess I'll discover the truth when Robert and I are reunited and blissfully happy once more.

I'm slightly disappointed in myself; I thought I was long past my insecurities regarding Georgiana, but now that I've met her in person, they've flooded back again, and I'm patently not over them at all.

Much as I hate to admit it, even to myself, she is still beautiful, graceful, and elegant, and projects her own unique brand of star quality and sex appeal.

Don't fall under her spell like I did, Miranda.
I hear Robert's voice in my mind's eye.

Oh, Robert! What would you say to me if you were here now? How would you advise me to handle this poisonous cauldron in which I'm trapped? My question is rhetorical, but by some strange alchemy I suddenly know exactly how he would answer it. He would tell me to focus, to be practical and not get sidetracked by emotion but just concentrate on escaping.

Georgiana stalks through the iron door, feeds me some water, locks a black leather collar around my neck, and attaches a leash to it.

“You look very fetching in a collar, you know, Miranda. But I guess you're accustomed to wearing one,” she says, unshackling me from the floor. She leads me into a second living room and chains me to a couch there, while I remember Robert's advice and struggle to harness my fury.

But all my resolutions fly out the window when I come face-to-face with my worst enemy in the universe: Mrs. Hatch. Tamara Hatch, the evil witch who was so obsessed with Georgiana that when she learned of Robert's romantic interest in me, she instantly developed a burning hatred of me, and I reciprocated that hatred ten times over.

Her helmet of hair is now arranged around her hard face in big curls, and instead of the black housekeeper's uniform she generally wore when she was on duty at Hartwell Castle, she is clad in a black velvet jumpsuit with a gold belt slung around the waist.

Her eyes meet mine, and in them I see so much mockery at my predicament that I lose it completely.

I spit straight into her face.

She leaps up, grabs me by the throat, and starts to throttle me.

“Stop it, Tammy, stop it! Otherwise all this will be for nothing,” Georgiana says. She pulls Mrs. Hatch off me with surprising strength, then slaps me across the face so hard that I see stars.

When I come to, I'm leashed to the leg of a heavy wooden armchair, in which Georgiana is sitting, as if on a throne.

“I trust that from now on, you will comport yourself with the highest decorum, Miranda,” she says, and for a second I am lost for words.

“So why have you dragged me here?” I finally summon up the strength to ask. I'm so stunned, so bewildered, and in so much pain—emotional and physical.

“Why have I dragged you here? Very simple. Because I've selected you to perform a special task for me,” she says in such an imperious voice that for a second I expect her to add, “I now award you the title of Lady Miranda Stone.”

Before I can ask Georgiana what she means, Mrs. Hatch marches over to a desk in the corner of the mausoleum and Googles something on a laptop.

“Insanity,” perhaps?

A desk. Google. The Internet! Focus, Miranda! They have Wi-Fi in the mausoleum . . . which means that I can get on e-mail. And even though Robert hates technology with a passion—he feels it has tarnished communications, and has armies of staff to deal with his e-mails and texts—at least he has a private cell phone and an e-mail address, just for emergencies. And once I've got the message to him that I've been kidnapped and that they have imprisoned me in the mausoleum, I know that he will spring into action and get me out of here in a trice.

Then I get real again; I'm chained to an armchair across the room from the computer, so how in hell can I get over to it, unless I single-handedly overpower Mrs. Hatch and Georgiana simultaneously? Impossible . . .

“He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious”; the words of Robert's favorite author, Sun Tzu, who recorded the sentiment in his
The Art of War,
pop into my mind, and I know that he is right.

Georgiana flashes me a glittering smile. “Well, little Miss Ghostwriter, I suggest that you make yourself comfortable in your new and luxurious surroundings, which Tammy and her trusted associates prepared for me with so much dedication. Further down the line, all will be revealed to you.”

Further down the line? That must mean that neither she nor the evil Mrs. Hatch plans to kill me right away.

The knowledge emboldens me.

“But why did you decide to disguise yourself by wearing contact lenses the same color as my eyes, and have your hair dyed red and arranged in the same style as mine?” I ask her.

“That's simple. Once I made the fateful decision to disappear, I knew I could only carry it off if I altered my appearance radically. And so, because of a photograph someone once showed me, and a prediction, I decided to model my new look on yours,” she says, then checks her makeup in the amethyst-encrusted mirror.

A photograph? A prediction? Six years before she first met me? Why on earth would she have wanted to copy my look that long ago?

I stare at her blankly.

She laughs a high, tinkling laugh.

“Not yet, Miranda. You can't always get what you want the moment you want it. Patience is a virtue, remember, sweetie?”

I want to pull out all her dyed red hair—and poke both of her blue eyes out while I'm at it.

But I can't because I'm chained up by my wrists and ankles, and unable to move more than a few feet, either to defend myself or to attack her or Mrs. Hatch, except to spit at them, which I've already learned to my cost won't get me anywhere.

Thanks to Robert, this isn't the first time I've been bound . . . so at least I can endure hours chained up without going crazy . . .

“Crazy, they're both fucking crazy!” I mutter under my breath.

Tamara leaps up, marches toward me, and aims a Glock 47 pistol straight at my head.

I freeze.
Don't panic, Miranda! They haven't brought you here to kill you right away.

“Lighten up, Tammy, she's got no options. Put the gun down and let's relax some before the real work begins, sweetheart,” Georgiana says.

Tamara throws her an adoring glance and immediately places the Glock on top of the casket.

In my relief, I am struck by Georgiana's words. Work? What work? What kind of work can there possibly be for me to do when we're locked inside a mausoleum?

We.
Don't ever say “we,” Miranda, because if you do, you will identify with the aggressors. Pretend to bond with them for your own ends, but never do . . .

I just wish there were a phone in this godforsaken prison.

Damn Robert for banning mobiles from Hartwell Castle. Otherwise . . .

Otherwise what? My hands are tied behind my back, two of the most dangerous, evil women I've ever encountered in my entire life are watching me like vultures, so that even if my phone were with me right now, my chances of texting for help would be as remote as my being suddenly able to blink like Jeannie in
I Dream of Jeannie,
and command the ceiling of the mausoleum to morph into a magic carpet and whisk me away to safety.

No, a phone won't get me out of this.

Only Robert will.

But where is he?

What has happened to him?

I'll kill anyone who tries to hurt a single hair on his head.