Unraveled by Her Read online

  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 stra
nge 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.

  All I can do is pray that nothing bad has happened to him, and that nothing ever will.

  I’m currently trapped in a prison, so there is nothing that I can do right now to rescue him from whatever terrible fate these monsters have got in store for him, and the thought makes me want to weep.

  No time to wallow in futile displays of emotion, I hear Robert’s voice say to me, loud and clear.

  Time to work out how to get out of here, because my fate is obviously all down to me, and only me.

  In an attempt to take stock of my surroundings, I crane my neck and check out the adjoining bedroom. The big double bed is covered by a red fox-fur coat, a black leather military-style greatcoat, boxes of Georgiana Royale, and an open Vuitton beauty case with a mirror in the lid, filled to the brim with makeup.

  For a second I feel as if I’m back in college again, about to be introduced to my two roommates and hoping fervently that we’ll all like one another.

  Almost as if she can read my mind, Georgiana gives me a friendly smile, whisks into the kitchen, and, after a few minutes, serves me a steaming cup of coffee.

  “Thank you, Georgiana, I appreciate it,” I say, as disarmingly as I ca
n manage.

  If she unties my hands so that I can drink the coffee, I’m going to fling it straight into her fucking face . . .

  But she’s clearly much too canny to make the mistake of doing that.

  Instead, she holds the mug close to my mouth and waits patiently while I drink the coffee.

  Then she opens a suitcase in the corner that I hadn’t noticed up till now and pulls out my vintage green dress (the same one I wore on my first lunch date with Robert, at Violetta, his restaurant in the Hartwell Gallery), underwear, and some flat shoes—not my usual stilettos.

  Pity, as stilettos could have been a perfect weapon . . . but Georgiana was clearly smart enough to figure that out, which is why I’m stuck with flats.

  “Good, Miranda, good. Now let’s get started,” she says, after she’s unshackled me and given me some momentary privacy in which to get dressed.

  When I come out of the bathroom, she takes me by the hands. “Beautiful,” she says, running her fingers up and down the back of them, first the left and then the right.

  Even from across the room, where Tamara is now back at the desk, polishing the barrel of the Glock, I can tell that she is bristling.

  “Feeling better now, Miranda?” Georgiana asks in a voice so warm and friendly that I wouldn’t be surprised if Tamara jumped up and stabbed her.

  If only . . .

  “Very much, thank you,” I say.

  My politeness is rewarded by Georgiana cuffing my right hand to another chain and attaching it to a chair leg, leaving my left hand free.

  For a second I toy with flying at her to claw her eyes out. But what would be the point, with the trigger-happy Mrs. Hatch watching me like a hawk, and the killer guard dog, Pluto, probably about to tear into the room any second and go for my throat?