by Wendy Leigh
“May I please sign the letter now, Georgiana?” I say in a sweet voice.
She passes me the letter without another word. I sign it with a flourish and hand it back to her.
And wait, my stomach in a knot, while she reads it once more.
When she’s finished, she flings the letter down on the desk.
“Don’t you dare trifle with me, Miranda! You aren’t in some dungeon playing naughty schoolgirl with your precious fucking Robert anymore. Get to work, write the whole letter all over again and sign it properly, or else . . .” She is shaking with rage.
“I don’t know what on earth you mean,” I say evenly.
“Are you seriously hearing impaired, Miranda, or just plain stupid? You haven’t signed the letter properly. And I repeat: now you’ll just have to write the whole thing all over again,” she says.
“You don’t understand, Georgiana, if I don’t sign the letter with Robert’s special secret name for me, he won’t for one second believe that it isn’t a forgery, that I actually wrote it,” I say, holding my breath and praying that she’ll fall for it.
“But I’ve never once overheard him call you that on any of the tapes!” she says, with an icy glare.
“You wouldn’t have. He came up with it when we were in Palm Beach. His special secret name for me,” I say.
“He never gave me one,” she snaps, and drums her fingers on the desk so hard that I expect one of her nails to splinter any second. “And why the word ‘Ciel’ when you aren’t even French?” she demands, and her eyes never leave my face.
Robert’s a big-time gambler. I’m not. But now I must bet everything in a life-or-death gamble.
“But Robert always says French is the most romantic language in the world. So when we were in Palm Beach together, he told me that he loved me up to the sky, which is why he gave me the secret name Ciel,” I say, literally staking my life on my ploy.
She pauses for a long moment . . . and then she gives me one of her dazzling Lady Georgiana Hartwell smiles, the kind I recall from countless magazine covers.
“Thank you for explaining that to me so succinctly, Miranda. Now I completely understand. We’ll dispatch the letter just as you signed it,” she says.
Then, still wearing the gloves, obviously because neither she nor Tamara wants to leave her fingerprints on it, she folds the letter, puts it in an envelope, and hands it back to me.
“Now address it to him,” she says.
And nightmarish though the moment is, and though my chances of escape or of ever seeing Robert again are slim, when I write his name on the envelope, I am filled with a warm glow just seeing the name “Robert Hartwell” there, in black and white.
The second I’ve written the address, Tamara grabs the envelope from me, strides over to the mausoleum door, unlocks it, and marches outside, the envelope clutched in her big hands as carefully as if it housed a bomb.
Which, of course, she and Georgiana have designed the letter to be. A bomb that—unless Robert understands why I signed it with the code word “Ciel”—will inevitably explode and destroy his love for and trust in me for always.
Chapter Four
No matter how hard I try, I just can’t fall asleep on this rickety camp bed that they’ve made up for me in the living room.
Questions whirl through my mind at the speed of light: Why did Georgiana fake her own death? Whose decomposed body was found at the bottom of Hartwell Lake? Why did Georgiana model her appearance on mine when she decided to disappear? And, the most painful question of all—what part did the man who called himself William Masters—the man whom Murray claimed owned Pamela/Georgiana, but whom Robert later unmasked as my grandfather—really play in this cesspool of a story?
There are so many mysteries for me to solve, so much to work out, so much to understand, that I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to sleep. But if I’m going to keep up my strength so that I can cope with whatever ordeal I’ll face in the morning, I know I have to grab some rest.
Instead, I think back to the dramatic night when Robert and I decided to trust each other, at last. We were in his suite in the North Tower when he revealed the monstrous truth about Georgiana to me, how she trapped and betrayed him, and how he truly felt about her now. Then, using hypnosis, he helped me to remember and then work through the traumatic childhood memory I had spent a lifetime trying to repress—the memory of my grandfather transgressing all boundaries and touching me as I should never have been touched.
I remember the words I wrote in my journal afterward. “When I’ve cried all my tears away, Robert makes love to me, and, at last, I come as I’ve never come before. In the afterglow, I snuggle close to him, all the shadows gone and nothing but happiness ahead of us.”
We fell asleep in each other’s arms. I slept peacefully, secure in the belief that Georgiana’s specter was finally slain for all eternity. Or so I thought.
But now that I am held a prisoner in her mausoleum, I realize that the false sense of security I felt on that night was a fool’s paradise.
I don’t want to think about her anymore—only of the night on which Robert swept away all the shadows of the past and taught me to trust him, to believe in his love for me, and in my own capacity to fully experience sexual pleasure with him. I pray that very soon I shall be in his arms again, and safe. And on that thought, I finally fall asleep.
“Wake up, Miranda, wake up, it’s morning! We haven’t got time to waste!” Tamara yells from what seems like underwater, and the sound of her raspy voice snaps me out of my sleep and into a nightmarish reality.
She lumbers over to me with a silver tray on which a plate of blueberry waffles rests, alongside a mug of coffee.
“Lady Georgiana kindly made this for you before she went out,” she says.
Went out! Georgiana went out?
“But how? Where?” I say, picturing Hartwell Island and Hartwell Lake in my imagination. Robert has security surveillance on both the lake and the island, so she can’t just row to shore. How on earth can she come and go?
“Georgiana has her ways, don’t think she hasn’t,” Tamara says, then elaborates, “She’s a champion swimmer. And as she masterminded the installation of the estate security system herself, she knows exactly how to disable it.”
So that’s how I was ferried over to Hartwell Castle undetected!
But although I am starting to make sense of my predicament, I am seriously sidetracked from my thoughts by the smell of the blueberry waffles. For a second I remember the fairy tale about the witch fattening up Hansel and Gretel before she eats them. And the wicked stepmother feeding Snow White the poisoned apple. I wonder whether I’m taking a serious risk by eating even just one bite of the waffles Georgiana made for me. But I’m so hungry, and the waffles smell so good, that I ignore my misgivings and wolf them down anyway.
Much as I hate to admit it, they taste delicious. Just as Robert once told me, Georgiana is a terrific cook. I catch myself resenting that he praised her. I was so sure that I had vanquished my insecurities about Georgiana that I’m utterly amazed that, at the drop of a hat, I can still erupt into jealousy of her.
I force myself to push those emotions out of my mind, and instead get dressed in the peach Stella McCartney dress that Tamara has thrown on the bed. I have mixed feelings about the dress: I love it because Robert bought it for me, but the fact that he bought it in Geneva does bring the hell of my unhappy time there back with a vengeance.
Then the mausoleum door swings opens and there, on the threshold, stands Georgiana, dressed in a long, regal, purple halter-neck dress far more suitable for a ball than for hiding away in a tomb. Or for swimming across Hartwell Lake. Besides, she is bone dry.
Tamara takes Pluto outside for a walk in a flurry of “Come to Mommy,” “Mommy loves her little boy,” and “Fetch, Pluto, fetch!!”
Georgiana motion
s me to sit next to her on the white couch. I position myself as far as possible from her, but she still reaches out and pats my knee.
“Now, sweetie pie, I’d appreciate it if you would tell me exactly how you go about ghosting an autobiography for a celebrity,” she says, and my jaw drops.
“Why the fuck should I tell you anything, when yesterday you made me tell Robert that I conned him, never loved him, and never want to see him again!”
Her eyes narrow.
“I’m not asking you, Miranda, I’m telling you. And you don’t have any choice except to answer my question, and right now,” she says, and I have to clench my fists to stop myself from hitting her.
But what do I do now?
“When your enemy is stronger than you, evade,” Sun Tzu once said.
Thanks for nothing, Sun Tzu. How the fuck can I evade my enemy when she’s got me chained up in a marble mausoleum, even if by a very long chain?
“Wipe that scowl off your face, Miranda, because this really is your lucky day! I’ve got some wonderful news for you; I’ve chosen to afford you the unparalleled honor of ghosting my autobiography!” she says, and to my shame, at that moment the professional ghostwriter in me suddenly kicks in; Miranda Stone, best-selling ghostwriter to the stars, forever on the lookout for her dream gig ghosting an autobiography that is destined to become a massive global bestseller.
And—although I can’t believe that I’m actually having this thought—the story of Lady Georgiana Hartwell’s disappearance, the way in which she faked her death, how she came back to life again, her sensational memoir in all its tabloid glory, will outsell every book published since time began!
Then I come to my senses; there’s no way in the universe that I should, even for a nanosecond, contemplate ghosting a book for this insane woman, this global icon—dead or alive.
I blush with shame at my own professional wantonness.
“Pussycat got your tongue, cupcake?” she says, then flicks an imaginary speck of dust from her shoulder, as if she were swatting a fly, and the symbolism is not lost on me.
I shake my head.
So this is why I was kidnapped and brought here; Georgiana needs a ghostwriter and has bizarrely opted to pick me.
One mystery solved.
I am just mulling what exactly that means to me and how I can somehow use my ghostwriting skills to break out of here when the mausoleum door bursts open, and in bounds a rain-sodden Pluto with Tamara in hot pursuit.
“Pluto, baby, let Mummy dry you, baby, please!” she says, and grabs him.
Whereupon Pluto wriggles out of her arms and races over to me. Quick as a flash, I slip some waffle crumbs into his mouth. He swallows them and then licks my face and neck.
Crazy as this may be, I am flooded with warmth at the thought that in the midst of all this insanity, I’ve actually made a friend, an ally, who—against all odds, given his evil owner—is sweet and gentle.
“Gimme him,” Tamara says, and yanks Pluto away from me.
“Bad dog!” she says, then glares at me, attaches a collar and leash to Pluto, and attaches the leash to a table leg opposite me while he whines pitifully.
Chained up in a mausoleum by a crazed witch? Who can fucking blame him!
Georgiana switches on the tape recorder and gives me an imperious look. “Ask me your first question, Miranda.”
“Okay, Georgiana, here it is: Why do you want to publish your autobiography?” I say, hoping against hope that her answer will give me an insight into her crackpot plan to railroad me, of all people, into ghosting her autobiography.
She throws back her head and laughs her tinkling laugh.
“Oh, my dear little cupcake! I can’t believe that you are stupid enough to think that I want to publish my autobiography! Why on earth would I possibly want to do that?” she says.
“Then why the hell did you kidnap me and drag me here to interview you for it?” I say, feeling my temperature escalate.
“Because I want you to ghost my autobiography. An autobiography that will never be published. An autobiography written as a means to an end,” she says.
I’m speechless.
She looks deep into my eyes and says, “Now ask me that same question again. Only this time, don’t ask me why I want to publish my autobiography. Ask me why I want to have it ghosted,” she says.
I don’t give a fuck, Georgiana, I don’t want to ask you anything, I don’t want to look at you, to be with you, to smell the scent of violets for another second, or to sit here in this marble fun house and look at the casket inside which you are supposed to be. I just wish to God that you really were in there and dead and gone.
“Ask it! Ask me the fucking question the way I told you to ask it, Miranda!” she says, and stamps her foot.
“Don’t think you can bully me, because that definitely won’t get you what you want from me. Quite the reverse,” I say, and glare at her.
A shot rings out as Tamara fires the Glock into a cushion just inches from my back.
When I’ve stopped shaking, I square my shoulders.
“All right, Georgiana, you win. Here’s your fucking first question. Why do you want to have your autobiography ghosted?” I say.
“Thank you, Miranda. I’d be delighted to tell you,” she says, with a glowing smile.
All of a sudden, against my will and despite the fact that she’s my mortal enemy, I can’t wait to hear her answer.
“Because I still love my husband and I want him back,” she says.
Chapter Five
I’m white as a sheet, dumbstruck.
“Pour the silly goose a shot of whiskey,” Georgiana orders Tamara, who rushes to get me one.
Then Georgiana turns to me.
“It’s very simple, my dear. Unless you ghost my autobiography to the very best of your considerable abilities, you will never see the light of day again.”
“I’d rather die than be your ghostwriter,” I say.
“That can easily be arranged,” she says, and I’m reminded how dangerous she is. Not to mention Tamara.
Then she gives me her glittering Lady Georgiana smile.
“But let’s not go there, shall we? Far better for us to remain good friends, don’t you agree?”
I gawp at her in disbelief.
“Let’s rise above all our differences and focus instead on our goals: producing an autobiography that will tell the real and heartwarming truth about me. The truth about my deprived childhood, the setbacks I faced throughout life, and—most important of all—how forces beyond my control conspired against me and on pain of death forced me to blackmail Robert,” she says.
I am so shocked that I am suddenly unable to silence an unwelcome voice from the past: When in doubt, say nothing.
“Very well, if that’s the way you want it,” she says when I fail to react to her words, shrugging her elegant shoulders.
“Let me make this plain to you: I expect you to craft my autobiography in such a way that when Robert reads it, he’ll understand exactly who I am, what I am, why there was no alternative for me but to do what I did; that I deeply regret my actions; and that I want to make it all up to him. Then he’ll fall in love with me again, much deeper than before, and I’ll get him back,” she says.
“But what about me? Robert loves me!” I scream.
“You, my little lamb? You will be far too far away from him, and for far too long, for him to care about you anymore,” she says.
She plans to make me ghost her autobiography, and then when I’m done, she’ll kill me!
“So why not get it over with and kill me right here and now?” I say.
“Because you haven’t even begun to outlive your usefulness to me yet,” she says.
While I digest her latest threat, she jumps up and gets a silver hairbrush from the dresser.
/> “You look a trifle wan, Miranda, and your hair is frightfully matted,” she says, then proceeds to brush my hair, in long, slow, hypnotic strokes. I sit there and battle hard with myself not to rip the hairbrush out of her hand and stuff it down her throat.
I tense all over. At the same time, I can’t help but notice the initials GH engraved on the handle and grip my whiskey glass so hard that I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter.
I thought I’d far transcended my jealousy of Georgiana, after Robert told me the shocking truth about her. But the emotion I’m experiencing now is far worse than jealousy. For I’m not torturing myself about his imaginary passion for Georgiana anymore, but about a stark reality: she is married to him and she now wants to win him back.
But surely she doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of achieving her crackpot goal? Robert will never take her back, not in a million years. Unless, of course, he actually believes the lying words of that monstrous letter, the letter in which I was forced to confess to him that I am a cheat and that I never loved him at all.
I feel myself plunge into despair.
“In any event, cupcake, writing my autobiography will be enormous fun. For both of us,” she says, and I want to scream in anger and frustration.
Fun? How in hell can it be fun for me to be forced to ghost an autobiography for my worst enemy, an enemy who wants to use that autobiography as a weapon, a weapon that could lure Robert back to her again?
The truth is that I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I ghost her autobiography with my customary passion and dedication, there’s a strong chance that Robert will read it and be captivated by her all over again, just as she dreams he will.
My mind is reeling at the same time that my heart is breaking.
“But given that this is our first day working together on my book, I’ve made the decision to allow you a short respite before we start in earnest. In a few moments, I shall be showing you an important movie that will provide you with a sense of the rationale behind the prologue with which I wish you to commence my autobiography,” she says. Not for the first time, I wish that the bitch could speak in plain American. Because I really don’t know what the fuck she means.
