Unraveled by Her (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

I don’t know how much longer I can listen to this; I don’t know how much more I can take! Hour after hour of Georgiana putting her romantic memories of Robert on tape, waxing sentimental over him and gushing about their supposed romance like some breathless, love-struck teenager.

And all in such cat-with-the-cream tones, so oblivious to my feelings for Robert, my love for him, and his for me. But if he discovers that Georgiana kidnapped me and is still alive, that I knew it but hid the truth from him, will his love for me survive? I doubt it . . .

I push that thought out of my mind and settle back and ask Georgiana one of the questions foremost in my mind.

“But when I listened to everything you told me about your life with Robert once he found you again, and proposed marriage to you, you sound as if you were so happy, so much in love with him. Yet you went ahead and blackmailed him.”

She nods, her eyes big and serious.

“And I’ll regret it to my dying day,” she says.

“So why did you do what you did on your wedding night?”

She pauses for a long moment.

“I was being blackmailed myself,” she says finally, then adds, “I can’t reveal the identity of my blackmailer to you, nor can it be included in my autobiography. But more than anything else, I need Robert to learn the story behind the blackmail, the wrong that was done me, and how the blackmailer used it to his advantage. It’s late, but I’ll tell you every detail tomorrow.”

I visibly relax, but she goes on, “A brief overview for you, just so that you can get a feel for the tragedy, the drama: Simon Watford didn’t just rape me in a variety of ways. He also had someone there to film my rape from every angle. And my blackmailer got his hands on a copy of that film and threatened to post it on the Internet unless I blackmailed Robert and took him for everything he had. The threat of public humiliation in the face of the world, and the private shame and humiliation about the part I played in Murray’s deception, gave me no choice. Moreover, it was made eminently clear to me that if I refused to bow to the blackmailer’s demands, I’d be at the bottom of the East River, with rocks in my pocket, drowned. And so I gave in.”

I am almost inclined to believe Georgiana’s story, as it seems to me that her blackmailer, like Murray’s murderer, must be a mobster who secretly owned shares in Le Château. After all, I’d always heard that the sex business is notorious for Mafia infiltration.

With a catch in her voice, she goes on, “As it is, what I did naturally caused me to lose Robert’s trust. Any man would have found my actions unforgivable, but I knew that for Robert it would be far, far worse. I betrayed his trust, and that, for him, would have been anathema,” she says, while I feel myself pale.

“I’m sure that as a result of what I did to him, he won’t ever trust another woman again, not even you,” she says, and I flinch at the irony.

“You see, Miranda, he was such a little boy when his father killed himself. And you know that he found the body,” she says.

I didn’t, and hearing it shocks me to the core. “Poor, poor Robert! I had no idea.”

“He was just seven years old when he found his father’s body, his throat cut and blood streaming everywhere. But of course that was never made public,” she says.

“So he told you all about it himself?” I say. However appalled and saddened I am at her revelation, I can’t repress the stab of jealousy I feel at the thought that Robert might have confided his childhood trauma to her, and not to me.

“No,” she says, “Murray did.”

My jaw drops.

“You see, the moment it hit him that he’d caught as big a fish as Robert in his net, Murray ordered his detective to uncover every single thing he could about Robert,” she says, and the story falls into place for me.

“But how did his father’s death cause Robert not to trust women?” I ask, bemused.

“As they carried his father’s body off to the morgue, and little Robert was sobbing his heart out, his mother hugged him to her and then and there swore to him that she would never leave him,” Georgiana says.

“And then she was committed to an asylum,” I say, as the truth dawns on me.

“After that, Robert never trusted another woman again. Until me, that is . . .” she says, and at least has the good grace to look shamefaced at her own words.

“And you went ahead and stabbed him in the heart,” I say, then am awash with guilt because, of course, now I’ve done exactly the same thing to him.

“Looking back, the moment Robert found me again and I moved into Hartwell Castle, I should have been honest with him about Suzy, about Pamela, because he loved me enough to understand. Then when the blackmailer struck, I could have told him everything about me and my life, and we could have fought him together. But I made the worst mistake of my life and did not,” she says.

And I fell into the identical trap by not telling him the truth about Georgiana. So in the end, we both made the same mistake. The bitter irony strikes me to the very core of my being, and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to live with it.

Meanwhile, she carries on: “And then, when Robert got the better of me, and he did, I faked my own death,” she says.

Robert got the better of her? I couldn’t be happier. But now isn’t the moment to ask her how he did it.

“Tell me about the woman whose corpse was found in Hartwell Lake, Georgiana,” I say.

“Robert made it easy for us by refusing to allow an autopsy on the body, after Tamara had arranged to have it dumped in the lake,” she says after a while.

I recoil.

“So Tamara murdered the poor woman!” I say, once I’ve begun to recover from the shock.

She shakes her head vehemently.

“Tammy was many things, but she was not a killer. She just found me a stray warm body. The body of a hapless professional submissive named Patty,” she says.

Right on cue, the doorbell of Le Château rings.

Georgiana dashes over to answer it, and ushers a girl in her early twenties into the dungeon.

“Angel, my little poppet, it warms my heart to see you here so bright and early. This dumb little bitch I’m trying so fruitlessly to train today has got deep-dish delusions that she can make it as a submissive. But you and I both know that a proper sub isn’t born in a day, don’t we?” she says.

“Yes, Countess,” Angel says in a faint voice.

“Right, then. I have an important meeting connected with my daughter scheduled on the Upper West Side. And I think this is the ideal opportunity to give Dumbo her first experience of being held in strict bondage, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, Countess, definitely,” Angel agrees eagerly.

Ten minutes later, I’m trussed up like a prize turkey, and in such a way as not to be in the least bit erotic or alluring.

“Well done, Angel! Now you can watch her while I’m gone,” Georgiana says, and sweeps out of the dungeon, leaving me alone with Angel.

She spends the next half hour in an adjacent office, from where she makes personal calls in a loud voice. Meanwhile, I plot how to take advantage of my solitude.

I need to take a leaf out of Georgiana’s book.

Identify with my aggressor.

Better still: become her.

Become Georgiana.

Angel sidles into the dungeon.

“So you think you’re going to make it as a sub here and steal my best tricks, do you, Dumbo?” She sticks her face in front of mine, expecting me to cringe and crumble.

I flash her a look so imperious that I’m surprised she doesn’t wilt on the spot.

“I’d caution you not to fall into the trap of believing every iota of what you are told, Little Miss Angel,” I declare, in bell-like Georgiana tones. “Because once I’m through with giving the best performance of my life to your sainted patroness, and she’s hired me, every single trick you’ve spent months cultivating will be at my feet, and you’ll be toast.”

“But you don’t have any experience!”

“Dream on, pussycat. Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. Forty percent to the bellman, sixty percent to me, and practically every high roller in Nevada who imagined himself to be a dominant and longed to crack his whip over the delicate, pink, and perfect flesh of a nubile submissive was in seventh heaven with me.

“You see, Angel, I may not be eighteen years old anymore, but if I weren’t in the demeaning position into which your phony countess has currently placed me, you would immediately become aware of a seminal truth: I’m every dominant’s dream submissive.

“Luxuriate in this vision of submission currently in front of you, sweetheart. I look like an angel—big tits, long legs, perfect ass—and I always aim to please. A virtuoso at oral sex, I can take every inch of a man down my throat. Ask me if I ever gag and I won’t comprehend the meaning of the question. And when a man ejaculates in my mouth—and he will, far sooner than he imagines—I happily take every drop.

“Pain? I can endure almost anything, and give the most convincing appearance of relishing every slap, every lash, every stroke, every bruise, every welt meted out to me.

“Role play? Absolutely! In English, in fluent French, in perfect German, in flawless Italian, and even a little Russian, if requested!

“Oh yes, pussycat, any man who gets a taste of my submissive charms will be mine for life, in bliss forever. Compete with me, sweetie pie? Dream on! Within three months, Madame Countess will be history, I can promise you. But if you play your cards right today and do what I tell you, you’ll soon be working for me and making a fortune!”

I take a breath, then give a sidelong glance to Angel, who—as the old song goes—has turned a whiter shade of pale.

“Lemme get this straight. You’re saying that you’re faking it? You’re not a new and inexperienced sub at all? You’re snowing the countess so that you can get in here and take over the joint?” she says, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief.

“So you really aren’t as stupid as you look after all, my precious little Angel-pie! But nonetheless, I’ll make it simple for you: once your precious countess has made her ludicrous attempts to turn me into a submissive, when I’m already light-years ahead of any submissive in this state, and in most of all the others, as well, I’ll take sessions 24/7 and, along the way, I’ll yank Le Château right out of her inept clutches.”

“I’ll tell her what you’re planning! I’ll tell the countess,” she says.

“Good luck, sweetie pie. She’ll tell you that I’m simply boasting, that I’ve got ideas far above my station and not to take any notice of me. At your peril, you won’t . . . not until I deign to show my hand, you won’t,” I say.

“But . . .” Angel stammers.

“And then I’ll own Le Château, and you, lock, stock, and barrel, my delicate little cherub!”

She casts wildly around the dungeon, searching desperately for something with which to counteract my claims.

“Let me give you some stellar advice that will hold you in good stead when you eventually attempt to make your way in the world, Angel. If ever you are confronted by the glorious specter of a full-blooded beautiful woman who lives by the motto ‘Only an act of God will stop me from getting what I want,’ you need to accept the inevitable: you will be trounced by her. And my advice to you is, throw in the towel. Because whatever you do, she will always, always win.”

“So I—”

“So you only have one alternative, Angel. Listen carefully, because here it comes. But first you have to untie me. And then I shall give you the key to your survival in this cruel and heartless business.”

Within seven minutes Angel has untied me, and I’m free and ready to run like the wind.

Except . . .

I hear a loud and insistent banging.

And then the words “Angel, Angel, open the door at once. I’m back!”

“One call, and that’s all it will take to get me out of your life, out of here and gone forever,” is what I tell Angel.