Unraveled by Her (8 page)

“William Masters?” she echoes, with a delicately furrowed brow. “I’ve never met anyone named William Masters in my life.”

How can that be, when Murray told Robert that William Masters had owned Pamela/Georgiana? And when I showed a picture of my grandfather to Robert, he identified him as the man he knew as William Masters, yet Georgiana claims to have never met him. Strange, when, long before he started posing as William Masters, my grandfather met Georgiana at Les Orchidées, where he taught her astrology, and he then became her astrologer. So how come she says she’s never met William Masters?

I stare at her, gobsmacked. My stomach clenches and there is no way in the world that I can hide the violence of my reaction from her.

Witnessing it, she leaps up and claps her hands in the air. “Movie time!” she proclaims, as if she were the captain of the basketball team and Tamara and I her star players. Tamara takes her place next to me, Georgiana sits on the other side, and the mausoleum swells with the strains of the
Gone with the Wind
theme.

I know the movie well, so at first, I close my eyes and brood over the nightmare scenario in which I’m currently trapped. And silently reassure myself that if the dark day ever comes when Robert sees Georgiana once more, forgives her for her past crimes, and is seduced by her all over again, it will be just a matter of time before she shows her true colors, her spell over him is broken, and he comes back to me.

Deep down in my very soul, I truly do believe that Robert will never find a love greater than ours. Or a woman who loves him as much as I do, and who is outwardly strong and assertive, yet genuinely sexually submissive to the core.

But then Rhett Butler’s voice booms from the screen, for the first time in the movie, and I drown all my fears in the romance of
Gone with the Wind.

Much later that night, I dream of the scene when Scarlett, in the crimson dress garlanded with feathers, makes her entrance to the party, and afterward Rhett carries her up the sweeping staircase and ravages her. Only in my dream, it is Robert who carries me up the stairs and then ravages me. In my sleep, I come so strongly that I wake up soaked in sweat. Then I realize where I am, and the shock sets in—and the despair.

Chapter Seven

My third day in the mausoleum. To my relief, Georgiana backtracks on her snap decision of yesterday, and instead of launching into the epic romantic saga of how she first met Robert, she spends hours detailing her triumphs as an amateur actress instead.

By the afternoon, I’ve been subjected to her boasts for so long that my eyes have glazed over, and I’m only barely awake. Outside the mausoleum, the rain pours down in thick sheets, mirroring my misery, my sense of hopelessness.

Without any warning, Georgiana dives into the kitchen and emerges with a plate of strawberry-iced cupcakes. I take one, and when she isn’t looking, I swiftly rub my finger in the icing and extend it to Pluto, curled up on the couch. He licks it off, wags his tail in delight, then runs over to the desk, nestles underneath, and falls asleep.

I gaze longingly at the laptop from afar and wonder how I will ever manage to get over to it, chained up as I am. But even if the chain were long enough for me to drag myself all the way there, how could I ever conceivably crack Georgiana’s password, log onto my e-mail, and send an SOS to Robert?

Before I can answer my own question, she spies the direction of my gaze, races over to the laptop, and switches it off.

“And don’t think that if by some miracle you ever managed to make it all the way to the desk, you would be able to guess my password,” she says.

“She always uses her own special word, so you never will,” Tamara says, with a smirk.

Then, to my surprise, she and Georgiana suddenly start to busy themselves around the mausoleum, cleaning and tidying so frenetically that I wonder whether they are about to throw a party in here.

Then Tamara puts on a raincoat, rain hat, and galoshes and stomps over to me.

“Gonna get our good friend from JFK,” she says. She puts a bowl of water at my feet, plus a plate of oatmeal and a spoon, checks that my bonds are still secure, then laughs and says, “But of course you won’t be going anywhere, will you, Miss Bitch?”

Then she scoops up Pluto and heads to the door.

“Hang on, Tammy; Gigi is seriously allergic to dogs!” Georgiana says, and Tamara stops dead in her tracks.

“Damn, I forgot! Can’t have Pluto in the car with her, then,” she says, and dumps him at my feet.

“There, there, baby, Mommy won’t be long. And bad Auntie Miranda will look after you real well, won’t she?” she says, and digs me in the ribs.

“Fine, Tamara,” I say, and try not to look pleased that I will finally be alone in the mausoleum with just Pluto for company.

I start to calculate how much time I have before they get back from the airport: First they have to get to the secret passage and cross the lake, and then when they reach the other end, there’s the ride to the airport, then parking the car. After that, they’ll have to wait ages at immigration for Gigi to come through customs.

Say about three hours. Three hours to get it right.

For what seems like the fiftieth time in the past three days, I case the mausoleum. Difficult given that I’ve only got a few feet in which to maneuver. I am so frustrated that I could scream. Then—miracle of miracles—I suddenly hear a phone ring close by me. A phone!

Pluto barks excitedly.

“Fetch, Pluto, fetch!” He races around the mausoleum as if his tail is on fire, but neither of us can figure out where the sound came from.

Then the phone rings again, and I realize that it’s coming from the couch.

I strain my neck, and there, stuffed down the side of the sofa, is an iPhone in a purple rubber case.

And I thank God for that. Rubber. Soft and malleable. Malleable enough for a dog to bite into it.

It takes me an hour of “Fetch Pluto, fetch” before the little poodle valiantly comes through, snaps his teeth around the phone, and drops it at my feet.

Almost there, Miranda!

Just as long as the battery hasn’t run out.

The screen saver is a JPEG of the Union Jack. Unlikely that a New Yorker like Tamara would opt for that. So this must be Georgiana’s. But what in heaven’s name could her password be?

She’ll never guess Georgiana’s password,
Tamara’s taunting words echo in my mind.

So Georgiana’s pattern is to use words, not numbers, as her password.

I keep a check on the wall clock as I enter word after word into the phone:

VIOL for violet.

ORCH for
orchidée
.

GENE for Geneva.

GIGI.

TAMM for Tamara.

ROBE for Robert.

GEOR for Georgiana.

No luck.

Nothing.

In the eleventh hour, I have a brain wave.

The old violet seller. The violet seller who pinched Georgiana’s nipple and gave her her first sexual thrill.

I take a deep breath, cross my fingers, and type in four letters, S-A-K-S, and hey, presto! I’ve cracked her password.

But what do I do now?

They’ll be back any second now, so there’s not enough time for me to call 911 and explain my plight in detail. If my luck doesn’t hold and they burst into the mausoleum while I’m still on the phone, I’ll have Tamara’s Glock aimed at my guts, pronto.

Log onto my e-mail and e-mail Robert?

Same difficulty as calling 911: lack of time.

Call Robert?

If he suddenly hears my voice after receiving that lying letter, he might just hang up on me instead of listening to what I have to say.

Only one alternative: text him.

My hand shakes like a leaf as I type in the number of his emergency phone, the phone he sometimes has on, but not always. There are no guarantees he’ll see this, but I have to try. After all, what are my alternatives?

I type in the words “Prisoner in the Mausoleum. M,” press send, then delete the message afterward.

Then I kick the phone under the couch for Georgiana to find when she gets back.

At that fortuitous moment, Pluto barks like a mad dog, and I love him for the warning. I curl up in a ball and pretend to be asleep, just as the mausoleum door swings open.

Tamara hurtles in, grabs Pluto, and ties him up in her bedroom.

“Sorry, baby, Mommy has to keep you away from Auntie Gigi, otherwise she’ll break out in hives all over her pretty face,” she says.

Then Georgiana steps through the door, trailed by Gigi, all tumbling red hair and hourglass curves. Gigi, the monster who sent the purple wreath to Robert and almost destroyed our love before it had a chance to fully flourish.

“
Mes chéries, c’est merveilleux ici!
” she says, casting her shrewd doe eyes around the mausoleum.

Just to avoid engaging in any meaningless dialogue with any of them, I pretend to be asleep. From then on, I am subjected to the endless chatter of the three Les Orchidées graduates, amid their giggles and the chink of what I guess are champagne glasses.

All at once, Gigi claps her hands with so much delight that I get the distinct impression she has just won the lottery.

“Now I cook lunch for all of us, the French way,” she announces.

Then she pulls out a large tin of foie gras, one of snails, and another of snail shells from the bottom of her case, and at the same time, a black leather corset and a single-tail whip spill out on the floor. With a giggle, she crams the last two back into the case again.

Then she bustles around preparing lunch while Tamara and Georgiana watch a rerun of
Scandal
in the living room.

When she’s done, she sets the table. “
Musique,
” she says. “We must have
musique
!” She fishes an iPod out of her black crocodile Kelly bag.

“Shall we let her have lunch with us?” Tamara asks, nodding her head in my direction.

Georgiana fixes her with a fierce look.

“Use your head, Tammy. She won’t be much good to us if we starve her to death . . .” she says.

“And I’m so very looking forward to seeing the little
salope
put in her place and on her knees to us, and not to him anymore . . .” Gigi says.

Just give me time, bitch. He’ll be here, it will be over for the lot of you, and I’ll be free!

I watch the clock and stealthily count the minutes since I first sent the text to Robert.

Careful not to betray my tension, I take my place at the table and wish that I were anywhere else but here. But I still can’t help but perk up a fraction when Gigi serves us escargots in an herb and garlic sauce.

Until now, though, she hasn’t said a word to me directly, hasn’t even acknowledged that we’ve met before, never mind that she deliberately tried to turn Robert against me in Geneva.

At the memory of that purple wreath, an escargot sticks in my throat.

I manage to gulp it down, then turn to her.

“So did they force you to send it? Or did you come up with the idea of destroying my life all on your own?” I boil with anger.

Gigi narrows her eyes at me.

“
Ma chérie,
you underestimate me. Ten seconds with you and Robaire in the boutique, and the way in which he ate you up with his eyes, I knew that you had him by—what do they call it—ah, yes, his essentials. And that you were in danger to derail all our plans.

“I knew
tout de suite
to call Georgiana, even while you were still in the shop and making the show like some Hollywood movie star. So I followed her commands
immédiatement
; I arranged to bug the hotel suite that very night, then had the wreath delivered there.
Et voilà
! The fairy tale
est fini,
” she says, and before I have a chance to react, she turns up her iPod as high as it goes to drown me out.

Through the rest of lunch I sit there and face Georgiana and Tamara, with Gigi next to me, as the iPod plays romantic song after romantic song.

“I recorded a playlist just for you, Georgiana,
chérie,
” she says, “and one specially for you, Tamara,” she adds.

Tamara’s playlist, as it turns out, tells a story:

“Native New Yorker.”

“It’s Only Make Believe.”

“Love for Sale.”

“Big Spender.”

“Milord.”

And a series of French and Italian songs, none of which I recognize. Periodically Gigi dashes back into the kitchen to present yet another French delicacy to us.

“And now for you, Milady Georgiana,” Gigi says, with a mock curtsy, after she has flambéed the last crêpe suzette and served one to each of us in turn.

Georgiana’s playlist opens with “She,” then is followed by “All in Love Is Fair,” “You’re a Lady,” “Where Do You Go To My Lovely?” then a long series of songs in praise of beautiful women, and ends with “I Am What I Am.”

“So full of courage, so full of defiance, so very you, my Georgiana,” Gigi says with a loving smile.

Then she turns to me.

“And now a special song for you,
ma chérie
!”