Unraveled by Her (20 page)

Half an hour later and Georgiana is still steaming.

“I can't believe that little simpleton untied you, just because you complained of cramp!” she says.

“Please don't make her suffer for it tomorrow. It's my fault,” I say.

And inwardly I rejoice, because ten minutes ago, after Georgiana ripped into her for untying me, Angel burst into floods of tears and rushed out of Le Château, armed with Robert's telephone number and his e-mail address, along with my message for him.

Georgiana switches on the tape recorder again, and I sit back and let her continue her story while I nod and smile, pretending to listen. But I don't hear a single word.

Robert could get here any minute now.

Then he'll find out she's still alive, and that I kept the truth from him.

So how the hell do I get rid of her so he won't?

My only solution is to do to Georgiana what she would do to me; get rid of her so that he won't find her here.

Then again, I'm not a murderess, so how do I do that?

I get my answer when the dungeon door crashes open.

“I've come back to claim what's mine, Georgiana,” a male voice booms.

And she freezes.

“But I assumed that you were long dead and buried . . .”

“Better luck next time, you blue-blooded bitch,” he says, and smashes his fist straight into her face.

“Murray?” I say, on a hunch.

“Mr. Hatch to you,” he says.

Then he turns to Georgiana, who is crumpled up on the ground, her face in her hands, sobbing.

“You fucked it all up once. Then I got you another shot at it. And you didn't just fuck it up again, you took my beautiful Tammy down with you. My beautiful, beautiful Tammy who had to fight all these years to become the woman she wanted to be. Just when she was done with all the treatments and ready to start her life as a proper woman, you went and got her killed. So now it's payback time.” And he pummels her head over and over, while I stand there, rooted to the spot in horror.

Georgiana and I are alone together in the dungeon now. We are both tied up and her power over me is a thing of the past, now that she is in fear for her life, which could end at the hands of either Murray or his sinister nameless associates.

And until he comes back to the dungeon again now that he has taken a pause from battering her, or Robert ultimately rides to my rescue, we both remain imprisoned here with time to burn.

It occurs to me that perhaps now, in the eleventh hour, she'll finally enlighten me regarding all the many mysteries surrounding her story that have puzzled me for so long.

So I take a deep breath and go for it.

“I know you didn't expect it to end like this for us both, Georgiana. And I wish it hadn't. But whatever now becomes of us, the ghostwriter in me still craves some answers . . .”

She lifts her head up and her hair spills over her shoulders, yet her bruised and battered face still somehow retains that old Lady Georgiana Hartwell magic.

“You want me to give you the name of my blackmailer, tell you how Robert got the better of me in the end, why I finally faked my own death, and exactly how and why—when you suddenly materialized in his life—you tore down the house of cards I'd so painstakingly constructed, don't you?” she says, her voice still slurred with pain.

“Of course I do, Georgiana. Wouldn't you, if you were me?”

“Not for a second. I've always lived my life by two creeds. I've already told you the first one: ‘Only an act of God will ever stop me from getting what I want.' The second one is even more to the point: ‘If I don't get what I want, I shall just obliterate the past, and move on.' Which is what I firmly advise you to do from now on, Miranda,” she says.

I open my mouth to answer, but the door crashes open and there stands Murray, naked and brandishing a single-tail whip.

“While I'm waiting for my forensic accountants to show up, I guess I'll kill time and have a bit of fun with you two sluts,” he says, then strolls toward us, whistling.

Chapter Twenty-Six

An hour later and Murray is still toying with us. Georgiana is locked in one cage, and I'm tied hand and foot to a sling swinging from the dungeon ceiling. We are both naked.

“Collateral damage, aren't you, pretty babe?” he says to me.

I bring myself to look straight into his ice-cold blue eyes and a shudder goes through me. I follow his gaze to a pulley on the ceiling from which hang a series of ropes with cuffs at the ends of them.

He drags Georgiana out of her cage, pulls her to her feet, and she screams like a banshee.

“No point in screaming. All the dungeons are soundproof, remember, Suzy?” he says, and punches her in the face so hard that the blood pours out of her nose and mouth.

Without giving her a second to rally, he attaches cuffs to her wrists and ankles while she tries to fight him off—but fails. He anchors her ankle cuffs to two rings in the floor, and her wrist cuffs to the rope that hangs from the pulley.

And then he clicks a lever on the wall and she is hoisted up high on her toes and hangs from the pulley, helpless.

Then he advances on me and I cringe.

He sets about releasing me from the sling with such speed that the freedom, coupled with the discomfort from where the ropes bit into my flesh, is dizzying.

“Rope marks all over you—I love a woman with rope burn all over the most tender and intimate areas of her flesh,” he says, running his paws over the raised welts on my flesh and pinching them one by one while I yelp in agony.

Then he drags me over to where Georgiana dangles, naked and terrified.

And anchors my feet to the floor, cuffs my wrists in the shackles, and then hoists me up on my toes, just as he has done to her.

And we both hang there, just a foot away from each other, both naked, trembling, and suddenly so shamed that we are unable to meet each other's eyes.

“Shy, are we?” he says with a laugh, then marches over to the wall and presses a button, and all of a sudden, to my horror and Georgiana's, the ropes attached to the ceiling pulley move together, so close that our naked bodies touch.

“Time to get to know each other better, isn't it, girls?” Murray says, and takes a big rope and ties it around Georgiana's waist, then mine, so that we are pressed tight together, face-to-face.

And at that moment I thank the universe for making her so much taller than me, otherwise our breasts would be pressed so close together that our nipples would touch, and if we moved, they would abrade each other.

But within seconds, move we do, as Murray swings a cat-o'-nine-tails, first against Georgiana's back and ass, then against mine, and with each stroke we press into each other, and our sweat mingles with every cruel stroke Murray inflicts on us.

First our backs and asses, then our sides, as he moves around us, slowly, so slowly, and lashes whatever parts of our bodies take his fancy.

When he has finished we are both sobbing pitifully, and our bodies are scored with marks.

He must be done with us by now!

“And now for the fun bit,” he says, then clicks the button in the wall again and the pulley slides so that Georgiana and I are apart once more.

Then he smiles and unties Georgiana, only to retie her again, this time with her back to me.

And then he proceeds to do the same to me, so that Georgiana and I are now back to back.

Next he ties the rope around our waists again, so that we are tied together, back to back, which leaves our breasts, our stomachs, our pussies, and our thighs at Murray's mercy.

Or rather, his lack of it.

Because this time, his lashes come fast, well placed, with a rhythm that makes us swing from side to side to escape him, while he is afire at each and every stroke he inflicts on us.

But each time we grind our welts against each other in a desperate attempt to escape his strokes, we only inflame those welts even further.

Then he unties us both.

Next he attaches every part of Georgiana's body, even her neck, to one of the St. Andrew's Crosses so that she is immobilized and facing the wall, and secured there so tightly that she is unable to move an inch, never mind turn her head and look behind her.

Then he spread-eagles me on the other one, only this time with my back to the wall.

Then he takes a red Magic Marker and draws a dartboard around the circumference of each of my breasts.

“Let's see if I can hit a bull's-eye,” he says, and raises his whip high in the air.

The first shot blows all the fingers off Murray's hand; the second, his hand from his arm. And the third his arm from his shoulder; the fourth, his shoulder from his neck, and the fifth, his neck from his head. His body slumps to the ground. Robert has come for me at last!

He wraps his arms around me as if we were the only two people in the dungeon, and gently unties me, cradles me in his arms, and rocks me. Then he ever so gently wraps me in a trenchcoat, covering the evidence of my abuse at Murray's hands.

As the paramedics approach the cross, Robert pulls away from me for a second.

“Untie her and get her to the hospital as fast as you can. Charge all her treatment to me.” He says, and then carries on kissing me.

Over his shoulder, I watch terrified, as the paramedics untie Georgiana and help her onto the stretcher. They carry her past us while Robert keeps on kissing me.

And then . . .

“Darling, darling Robert, I'm back!” Georgiana sits bolt upright and says.

Robert gives a start, then turns away from her and kisses and hugs me as if his life depended on it, as if we were the only two people in the world and nothing else existed—not this dungeon and certainly not Georgiana.

“Replace me with her? With little Miss Liar here? She knew I was alive all along, but she didn't tell you, did she?” Georgiana hisses, as they carry her out on the stretcher.

Robert stands there, impassive.

Then he turns to me.

“Miranda?”

“I'm sorry, Robert. I did know. I just didn't tell you because I was petrified that you'd want her back.” I say.

I hold my breath, but he says nothing. Composing myself, I lift my head to meet his eyes without flinching.

His eyes are the eyes of a stranger.

I open my mouth to say something, anything, but he turns his back on me and strides out of the dungeon.

After Georgiana?

I don't know, and all of a sudden, I don't really care.

All I know is that I've lost him.

Not because of Georgiana, not because of her glamour, her spirit, her splendor, but because of my insecurity, my duplicity, my lack of faith in him.

I lost the love of my life all on my own, and now it's over and he'll never love me again.

I stand there, alone in the dungeon, surrounded by walls of whips and chains, pulleys, crosses, spanking horses, and suspensions, and for a second it seems as if they are all closing in on me, about to trample me to the ground.

But I don't care.

I've lost Robert, and it's over.

Let the dungeon and its sinister equipment do their worst to me. Nothing could hurt more, nothing could punish me harder than the way I've hurt and punished myself.

I leave the dungeon, careful to slam the door after me.

Outside on the pavement, I look neither to the left nor to the right.

Robert is long gone now, but even if he were waiting in his limousine, watching for me to emerge from Le Château or waiting for me outside on the pavement, I would rather die than approach him.

I would rather die than chase after him.

I would rather die than beg him to take me back.

Because even though I am, at the heart of me, his slave, his submissive, his property, to me that very fact means my pride is more important than anything.

And I will not sacrifice it by running after him, by crying or by begging.

For while I have never hesitated a second about demeaning myself to him sexually, letting him dominate me in every aspect, use me, humiliate me, take me in any way that gratifies him, my capacity to do all that, to be so submissive, so servile, means that my pride is paramount—and always will be.

That and my breaking heart.

Like a sleepwalker, I cross the road to the East River, drawn there like a moth to a flame. I stand there and stare at the dark water for what seems an eternity.

So close, so simple, so all-encompassing. And the answer to everything.

Because without Robert, I don't want to live anymore.

I hold my breath, about to jump, to end it all, to obliterate my pain, myself, everything.

And then I hear the voices, the words, whispering at me from all directions, loud, insistent, impossible to ignore.

“It's better not to do something than to regret doing it.”

“He loves you to distraction.”

“Only an act of God will stop me from getting what I want.”

And finally, Robert:
“I shall love her until the end of time.”

I hear them all, I understand them all, and suddenly, I know what I must do.

I look back at my past, my past as a daughter, my past as a writer, my past as a lover, I look back at it all, then up at the sky that, like a big, pale blue blanket, reflects back at me, bright, light, full of hope, and with it, I see the vast horizons in front of me, the dream, the possibility, the certainty, and at that moment I know, as sure as I know that the stars will shine tonight and dawn will break tomorrow, I know that no matter what, no matter how, I will get Robert back, and he will love me once more, now and forever.