Unraveled Together (17 page)

I stand up, unable to listen to any more.

“I suggest you curb that Italian temper of yours, Mr. Hartwell, otherwise you will fail to get anything whatsoever from me,” he says, and I sit down again, still shaking with fury.

Chapter Seventeen

Robert, the Present

“Let me begin then, Mr. Hartwell. Naturally, the moment Miranda was born and first saw the light of day, I drew up her astrological chart and committed it to memory. From that time on, I was always cognizant of every planet in her natal chart, its placement and all its aspects, as if her chart were my own,” the twisted and depraved man in front of me says.

“Miranda's chart first entered the picture—and dramatically—when she was almost seventeen years old. She first met Warren Courtney on the day my son, Luke, married his second wife. I wasn't at the wedding, as at the time, I was away teaching astrology in Switzerland. Besides, Luke and I were long estranged. But Miranda told me afterward that she had fallen head over heels in love, at first sight, with her father's best friend, Warren Courtney.

“Before she took the plunge and embarked on a physical relationship with him, she at least had the good sense to ask me to draw up his astrological chart. And I did. One look at it, and then at his composite chart with Miranda, revealed everything to me. Warren Courtney's sadism, his lack of respect for women (and, as you know better than most people, sadism and lack of respect for women don't automatically go hand in hand; often, it's quite the reverse, as the sadist tends to respect a woman who shares, or at least caters to, his innermost secret desires), and I came to the immediate conclusion that I'd rather die before I allowed Miranda to devote her life to Warren Courtney . . .

“I tried everything I knew to warn her about him, but she refused to listen to me. Instead, she threw herself into an affair with him with abandon and I could do nothing, or so I thought. Then lightning struck, and the one person who could, perhaps, help me save Miranda from Warren Courtney sprang to mind—my favorite of all my clients. But then I remembered that she was in New York, on vacation. So I took the next transatlantic flight, and so it was that I was able to rescue Miranda from Warren Courtney. With Georgiana's help, of course . . .”

“What the fuck?!”

“I was so shaken, you see, by the possibility of Miranda falling into Courtney's clutches on a permanent basis, that when I convinced my client, Lady Georgiana Lacely, to have a face-to-face reading with me while I was in Manhattan, I confided my misgivings to her.

“ ‘Oh, so the perfect Miranda isn't pure anymore!
Quelle surprise!
' she crowed, then helped herself to another of the violet pastilles she always loved to have during our readings.

“ ‘Malice doesn't become you, Georgiana,' I said, not in the least bit surprised by her burst of it as I knew full well from her natal chart that malice was her middle name.

“ ‘So the perfect Miranda has fallen into the clutches of a predatory playboy?' she said, ignoring my comment.

“ ‘Yes, and my fear is that this two-bit playboy will marry her before I can even turn around, and she'll be stuck with him for the rest of her life when she could do far, far better,' I said, then realized that I'd made a fatal error. As I desperately needed Georgiana to employ her considerable feminine wiles to help me get Miranda away from Warren Courtney, the last thing I should have been doing was fanning the flames of her jealousy.

“ ‘Of course! I almost forgot, the perfect Miranda is destined to marry a prince, or a king, or even a god, she's such a paragon of virtue,' Georgiana said.

“I gave a big, exaggerated sigh.

“ ‘I'm an old fool, as far as she's concerned, I know, but this Warren really is bad news. I have to do something, and, well, Georgiana, with your genius . . .'

“I didn't even have to finish my sentence before she fell for it hook, line, and sinker and then swung into action.

“Now as to what action she took, Mr. Hartwell, I am loath to tell you. Suffice it to say that after one telephone call from Georgiana, Warren Courtney ended his relationship with Miranda overnight—and in the cruelest way possible  . . . leaving her shell-shocked, shattered, and unable to trust her emotions with another man.”

A long silence during which I digest the information—some of which I already knew, but not the swiftness and the cruelty with which Warren Courtney rejected Miranda.

“So what you are saying is that, apart from the fact that her father abandoned her, because Warren Courtney cut off his relationship with Miranda so abruptly and with so much speed—the first adult relationship she ever had with a man—she came to believe that every man she loved would leave her in the end?” I said finally.

“Most impressed, Mr. Hartwell, that you grasped my point right away. So now you understand the first reason for Miranda's insecurities, and how it drove her to hide the truth from you that Georgiana was still alive.”

I am, at last, growing to understand Miranda. But I still haven't begun to fathom everything else about this bizarre sequence of events. And the journalist in me can't quite manage to let it go.

“Hold it, are you really saying that Warren Courtney ended his relationship with Miranda and broke her heart after just one telephone call from Georgiana? How did Georgiana know him? What did she say to him? And why did he listen to her?” I say.

“But Georgiana didn't make the crucial call,” he said.

I raise an eyebrow.

“Would you care to elaborate?”

“Very well. As they say in journalism, here's the scoop: the call that Georgiana made was not to Courtney but to Tamara. Just one call, and twenty-four hours later, it was done.”

I give a start at the mention of her name.

“Yes, the formidable, resourceful, well-connected Tamara—Georgiana's sidekick and her friend from Les Orchidées. One call from Georgiana to Tamara, and another call from Tamara to a certain gentleman who paid a visit to Warren Courtney and took drastic measures to ensure that Courtney never saw Miranda again. A gentleman named Murray Hatch.”

Before I can mask my shock, he steams on.

“Yes, the aforementioned Mr. Hatch knew everything there was to know about taking drastic measures. He did what had to be done, and within a few hours, Warren Courtney had ended his relationship with my granddaughter. Naturally, Murray Hatch demanded ahead of time that I pay a price for his intervention in Miranda's nascent love affair, and, of course, I agreed to pay it,” he says.

“And what was it?”

He gives a short, hard laugh.

“One of the biggest surprises of my life. Apart from the fact that he took a few years before he decided to extract it from me, the price he demanded was extremely paltry. All I had to do was to present myself at a certain evening hour at an address near the South Street Seaport. An address that housed an establishment known as Le Château. I was to enter the lower level and position myself in front of a particular door with a grille in it, looking as grim and forbidding as possible, and remain there for five minutes,” he says, then adds, “And that was that.”

“And the name William Masters?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Means nothing whatsoever to me,” he said.

“And owning Georgiana?”

A look of shock mingled with disdain crosses his face.

“What an insane idea!” he says.

So Masters never owned “Pamela” (or rather, Georgiana), simply because he had never existed in the first place and was just a figment of Murray's twisted imagination.

Which means that Miranda's grandfather didn't conspire with Murray and Georgiana to trap me and steal my fortune. In short, he was innocent—a disquieting word to apply to a man who was guilty of one of the worst crimes conceivable .

Repulsed at the thought, I get up to leave, but he motions me to sit down again.

Almost as if he is reading my mind, he goes on.

“I shall not attempt to deny or diminish my crime, Mr. Hartwell. I have every expectation that at any moment you will castigate me unmercifully, and I know that I shall deserve everything you wish to throw at me and more,” he says.

“But I want you to know that not a day goes by that I don't berate myself for what I did to Miranda, and not a moment passes in which I don't punish myself for it. Or do what I can to compensate her for the wrong I did her. And I swear this to you: I do not intend to die before prostrating myself before my granddaughter, confronting all my turpitude, and begging her forgiveness. But for now—”

“For now, you want to gloss over the evil you did her,” I snap.

“An impossibility. Nothing can ever absolve me from my sin,” he says, and I see a veil of tears descend over his eyes.

Then he rubs them dry, takes a deep breath, and goes on.

“Very well, Mr. Hartwell. An explanation, but not—I stress—not an excuse.

“Imagine a night years ago, a drug-fueled night on which the then love of my life had informed me that she never wanted to see me again. A night on which I added drink after drink to the drugs swirling around in my system. And when I arrived home in the early hours of the morning, I did the unspeakable.

“You could say that the drink made me do it, the drugs, or simply the devil, but whatever the case, afterward, I vowed to spend the rest of my life atoning to Miranda for what I did to her, and through the years, I did just that, to the best of my abilities—aided, of course, by the stars,” he says.

“The stars, the stars, the fucking stars!” I shout, and start shaking him in fury.

With an immense act of will, he pulls away from me, his eyes blazing.

“Call me what you want, but never,
ever
insult the stars! You owe the stars everything!”

The man is deranged, no doubt about it.

After a few moments, he calms down.

“I apologize. So let me explain. Without the stars, Mr. Hartwell, I can assure you that you would never have met Miranda in the first place,” he declares, a triumphant note in his voice.

Chapter Eighteen

Robert, the Present

“Go on,” I say, simultaneously weary and wary.

He visibly relaxes, puts a pill under his tongue, waits for it to dissolve, then continues.

“Here is the truth: Not long ago, soon after she had been indirectly instrumental in rescuing Miranda from the clutches of Warren Courtney, my long-term client Lady Georgiana Laceley consulted me about a certain man in whom she had suddenly and unaccountably developed a burning interest. You, Mr. Hartwell.”

Shocked to the core, I give a sharp intake of breath.

He goes on, clearly enthralled with the sound of his own voice and the drama of his revelations.

“And so it was that I drew up your chart and interpreted it for Georgiana, in order to give her a glimpse of the destiny that the stars decreed awaited her with you when you finally met,” he says.

“However, when I examined your chart closely, the truth sprang out at me like a hand grabbing my throat: your chart and everything in it demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that you are the perfect lover, the perfect husband, the man whom fate had selected to love, marry, and make blissfully and everlastingly happy my cherished granddaughter Miranda.”

No matter how much I despise the man, no matter how skeptical I am regarding astrology, nothing can quell the rush of joy I feel at his words.

“All I had to do was to take one look at your chart to realize that you were born to love her, and vice versa. I did not, of course, impart that information to Georgiana at the time, because she had always been so jealous of my granddaughter.

“Unfortunately, a few months later, for reasons I now can't remember, she provoked my ire, my resolve faltered, and, much against my better judgment and interests, I made the mistake of proclaiming, ‘If your Mr. Hartwell ever chances to meet my granddaughter Miranda, he'll be swept off his feet, and from that time on, it will be as if you had never existed.'

“Georgiana's face went bright red, and she started screaming in a way I'd never heard her scream before: ‘In that case, your precious, precious Miranda will never get near Robert Hartwell. Not if I've got anything to do with it!' she said.

“Her anger was so terrifying to behold that I was at a loss for words, and didn't stop her when she grabbed Miranda's picture from my wallet, where she knew I always kept it. ‘I intend to memorize her sacred fucking face in case she ever has the temerity to show it near Robert Hartwell!' she raged.

“Then she studied the picture for what seemed to me an eternity, until I managed to wrest it away from her and lock it away in my safe so she couldn't tear it up,” he says, then stops for a second, fumbles in his bedside drawer, and produces a picture of Miranda aged around fifteen: fresh, innocent, already beautiful.

I feel uncomfortable admiring Miranda's photograph in his presence, so I'm almost relieved when he goes on: “But no matter how jealous of Miranda Georgiana was, the truth was inescapable, for the stars had shown me the way; you and Miranda were meant for each other. However, as it transpired, over the next few years, I was forced to sit and watch, helplessly, while Georgiana exercised her wiles on you.

“The waiting, of course, was alleviated by my awareness, gleaned from the stars, that her plans would ultimately come to naught. But until then, I had no alternative but to wait. And wait I did. Through Georgiana's stint at Le Château, first as Suzy (and how she loved regaling me with every salacious detail of that time in her life, just to see me squirm and suffer), then as Pamela, then as Lady Georgiana Lacely once more. Through her engagement to you and your subsequent marriage and the aftermath, I sat by the riverbank and waited.”

“But what in the hell were you waiting for?” I can't help asking.

“For the scales to fall from your eyes regarding Georgiana, and then for the exact date on which the planet Uranus hit Miranda's Venus, the date on which I could set everything in motion for her, the date on which it would all begin. After that, it would be just a matter of time before she met you, the man she was born to love, and who was born to love her,” he says.

“The exact date?”

“September thirteenth, 2014. The time: six ten. The date and the time on which Miranda inadvertently e-mailed her manuscript of
Unraveled
to her little sister, Lindy, instead of to her publisher, Linda. Two days later, little Lindy called and confided in me that she had the manuscript, and asked my advice regarding what she should do next. I suppose I should have instructed her to send it straight back to Miranda. But I had a suspicion that
Unraveled
could be the long-awaited instrument of my Miranda's fate. So I read it, and knowing your chart, your deepest, most secret desires . . .”

The blood rises to the surface of my face, but even though I want to blot out his words, and shut him up forever, I'm forced to restrain myself—because I need to learn the rest of his story.

“ . . . the rest was simple. On my instruction, Lindy donned the bunny-girl costume and delivered the manuscript to Hartwell Castle. Naturally, as I calculated she would, the moment Miranda learned that you had the manuscript, she was desperate to get it back from you.”

“So you sat back and watched while Miranda trapped me?”

“Trapped you? Miranda never trapped you. That was Georgiana's aim, but never Miranda's. All Miranda wanted to do was regain possession of her manuscript. And then she met you, whereupon, of course, destiny took a hand.”

“While you sat back and gloried in what was happening,” I say, livid.

“No, Mr. Hartwell, I wasn't glorying in it. I was—in my small way—helping your romance along. As you may or may not know, I coached Miranda for that very first phone call to you, outlined the words she should say to you, all designed to intrigue and excite you. Then I purchased the navy Chanel suit she wore to her first meeting with you. Chanel, because I knew that despite the fact of how your relationship with Georgiana ended, in the early days, you dressed her in Chanel, and nothing but Chanel. So I thought that Miranda wearing it might also beguile you. And finally, I drove her to Hartwell Castle, to her first meeting with you. After that, I bowed out completely and let destiny take over,” he says.

“Until now, that is . . .” I say bitterly.

“Yes, Mr. Hartwell, until now. And only because I can't take leave of this life and rest in peace without being assured that my beloved Miranda is back in the arms of the man whom she was born to love, and who undoubtedly loves her more than he will ever admit to me, simply because the concept of loving and being loved has always terrified him.”

I've had enough.

I push back my chair, pull myself up to my full height, and without another word storm out of the apartment.

I am in the limo again and headed back toward Manhattan when the inevitable call comes, and I curse Lindy for having given him my number.

I hesitate for a few seconds, then answer it and hear his weak, piping voice once more.

“Mr. Hartwell, if you still retain an iota of emotion for my granddaughter, and I think you do, and if you are a man of integrity and fairness, as I know you are, you will give her one more chance,” he says.

“Please get to the point, I'm late for my next meeting,” I say.

“As you wish, Mr. Hartwell. Here it is: Even you must agree that you now have in your possession the information that Miranda never intended to trap you, and that your initial meeting with her was due to me, and only me. And that I engineered it because I opted to play Cupid and unite my granddaughter with her soul mate, and for no other reason,” he says.

I believe him. And it does seem that I owe him much, much more than I am comfortable with, but I am not about to show any gratitude to a man who once did to Miranda what he did.

“One more thing, Mr. Hartwell, and this is the last,” he goes on to say, and I remain silent and let him have his final word. “Returning to my granddaughter and the way in which her father abandoned her, it seems to me that you, yourself, might understand only too well how abandonment by a parent when a child is very young can lead to that child growing up to become an adult who is secretly riddled with the fear of being abandoned by the person they love the most,” he says, pausing to allow his words to sink in.

Trouble is, they don't.

Or rather, I won't let them.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” I say.

“But Mr. Hartwell, it's here, right in front of me, in your chart, written in sky-high letters! You are a man who, from the time that he was seven years old, has lived in constant fear that the people he loves more than anyone else in the world will abandon him,” he declares.

I hang up my phone and order the driver to head straight to Hartwell Castle.

Only in the dead of night, after hours of soul-searching, do I finally arrive at the truth. To give the devil his due, he was correct: my whole life has been blighted by my fear of abandonment.

And that insight, along with my newly acquired knowledge that Miranda only hid the truth from me about Georgiana still being alive because of her own insecurities, and that she didn't plot against me, hardens my resolve. In the morning, I do what I guessed all along that I would do: I make the most fateful telephone call of my life.