Chapter Three

My hand is paralyzed in midair.

“Please don’t force me to write this to Robert, please. I just can’t do it. I can’t!” I burst into tears at the utter nightmare in which I’m trapped.

“Just do it, bitch!” Tamara grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me so hard that my teeth chatter.

“Stop it, Tammy!” Georgiana says, yanking her off me, and for a second I wonder who in the relationship is the dominatrix and who is the submissive.

She puts her arm around me, and I practically choke on the sweet and sickly scent of violets. The unwelcome assault on my senses serves to stem my tears, and suddenly I have an idea that I hope will stall her in her tracks and buy me some time.

“Now that your eyes are blue, Georgiana, do you still love the color violet so much?” I say, attempting to sound genuinely curious, when all I really want is to grab Tamara’s Glock and shoot her in the heart—if she has one, that is.

“Always,” she says.

“Because you have violet eyes?” I say.

“Oh, the real reason is far more interesting than that!” she says, her eyes alight at my question. Terrified as I am, I suddenly flash back to Palm Beach, strolling by the shores of the Atlantic with Robert, and telling him, “Much as I love it when you spank me, whip me, dominate me, Robert, I love just talking to you almost as much.”

And he gave me his Robert Hartwell King of the World smile and said, “Unique as you are, Miranda, I can’t help but think of Napoléon’s finest seduction tactic: ‘Give me the ear of a woman and I have that woman . . .’ ”

At first, I was insulted that he’d pigeonholed me as a silly, susceptible woman, but then I remembered my ghostwriting experiences and was forced to admit to myself that he was right. It isn’t just women who are seduced by conversation, but men, too—­especially when someone asks them about themselves.

Lucky for me, Georgiana is no different and is clearly delighted at the chance to hold forth about herself.

“Bring us some tea, Tammy,” she says, as if we are at afternoon tea in the Palm Court at the Plaza.

As Tamara skulks toward the small kitchen, Georgiana takes both my hands in hers, looks deep into my eyes, and, in a husky whisper, says, “You may think that I’m drawn to violet and violets because of my violet eyes, Miranda. But that isn’t the truth . . .” She pauses for a long time, presumably for dramatic effect, while I sit there and feign interest in what she is about to say.

Tamara deposits two cups of tea in front of us.

Time to fling the tea in Georgiana’s face?

I’d love to, but I can’t risk it. She’s so much taller than I am that it would probably miss her face and spill all over her chest instead, which wouldn’t do much damage at all. There’s no way I could overpower her and Tamara all on my own, and I have to accept that reality, much as I kick against it.

As Georgiana gushes on with her story, I force myself to drink my tea without gagging at her self-involvement. At the same time, I’m glad that I’ve succeeded in diverting her from her plans, if only for a short time.

“So why do I love violet and violets so much, Miranda? Let me tell you . . . I was fifteen years old, as innocent as the day is young, and in New York on vacation. In fact, I wish I still had a snapshot of myself that hot August morning. Me skipping along Fifth Avenue in a sweet little pink and white checked cotton summer dress, with delicate pearl buttons set in a frill that ran down the front.

“Outside Saks, an old man was selling tiny little bunches of violets for a quarter a bunch. I was broke, but they were so pretty that I couldn’t resist.

“ ‘Let me help you,’ the old man said, and moved closer to me, the violets in his wrinkled hands.

“I stood still. Then he leaned down to pin the corsage on my dress. All of a sudden, with lightning speed, he slid his fingers inside the front of it and pinched my left nipple, hard.

“That old man selling violets on Fifth Avenue pinched my nipple, and old and ugly as he was, he afforded me the first sexual thrill of my young life. Forever afterward, I always remembered that moment, and that thrill intermingled with the scent of violets.”

“What a riveting story,” I say, after I’ve digested her strange, dark revelation. “What gave you your first sexual thrill, Tamara?” I ask, as an afterthought.

Then I flinch at the butt of the Glock digging into the back of my neck again.

“Nice try, Miranda . . . Start writing!”

“Tammy is quite correct, cupcake. Plenty of time for social niceties after you’ve finished writing the letter,” Georgiana says.

She settles back in a cream leather armchair and, almost as if she were instructing a class in flower arranging, says, “Now, Miranda, pay attention. Write exactly what I tell you, word for word.

“ ‘My dearest Robert, There is no easy way for me to say this, but please don’t try and find me. There is no point, because I never want to see you again as long as I live. And even if you—with your stubborn, determined nature, which I know so well—persist in attempting to find me, I no longer love you. In fact, I never did.’ ”

“But he’ll never believe me, not in a million years!” I burst out.

“Oh, yes, he will, once you’ve told him everything in exactly the terms that I am about to dictate to you,” Georgiana says, just as Tamara digs the barrel of the Glock so deep into my neck that it takes all my willpower not to cry out in fear.

I’m trapped.

Held hostage by two maniacs.

No way out.

So I grit my teeth and start writing. “My dearest Robert . . .”

But I just can’t go on, and I slam the pen down on the desk.

“He won’t believe me. He won’t!” I say, as the tears stream down my face.

“Shut the fuck up and keep writing,” Tamara says, with a vicious twist of the Glock barrel against my right ear.

In fear for my life, like a robot trapped in a nightmare, I write the words Georgiana orders me to write.

“. . . By now you will have awakened from the drugged sleep after I dosed your champagne . . . and then shot you up with the tranquilizer gun, all done because I had to make my getaway, darling.”

I can’t bear the terrible lies that Georgiana is forcing me to write, and my hand is shaking so badly that, without intending to, I drop the pen.

“Keep writing, bitch,” Tamara says, and rams the pen back into my hand again as Georgiana resumes her dictation.

“My photographic memory means that I remember all the accusations you threw at me on that terrible night in Geneva . . . And remembering them, I can’t help but be amused by the irony of how close you were to the truth . . .”

Georgiana and Tamara exchange loaded glances, and Tamara sniggers.

“Lucky we had the hotel suite bugged,” she says, then gives me a vicious shove in the rib with the Glock handle.

“Robert, I could repeat every single lacerating word you threw at me on that terrible night in Geneva. I won’t go into details here, because in my heart I know that you must remember what transpired between us only too well.

“So I’ll just summarize; you accused me of being a trickster who somehow discovered that you were a seasoned dominant who hadn’t had a submissive for years, and consequently decided to use your desires as a way of getting my hands on your fortune.

“You accused me of enlisting my sister to storm Hartwell Castle and deliver the manuscript of Unraveled, the erotic novel I wrote. When, of course, I knew full well that it would excite you immeasurably. And once you had it, I faked a burning desire to get it back from you as an excuse for gaining admittance to Hartwell Castle, to meet you and to steal your heart.

“After that, you flat-out accused me of pretending to be a submissive in order to get a financial hold over you. Moreover, you accused me of inventing my BDSM relationship with Warren Courtney, my first lover, and of inventing my night at the Carlyle with the Master whose face I never saw and whose real name I never knew. And that my grand plan was to lure you into my ‘spider’s web,’ as you called it.”

I’m writing so fast, yet so carefully, that initially the words don’t really sink into my brain. And when they do, the horror of what Georgiana is forcing me to convey to Robert strikes me as hard as if Tamara had hit me over the head with her Glock, which I’ll bet she’d love to do.

“Continue writing, please,” Georgiana says. “ ‘The reality, Robert, is that you were right. Everything you accused me of was the truth. I was faking submission in order to get a financial hold over you. I did make up the story about Warren Courtney, about my night at the Carlyle with the Master. I made it all up. Every single word of it.’ ”

“But that’s a dreadful lie!” I burst out. “Robert will never believe that I’m not a real submissive. How could he, when I sailed through those five tests of my submission?” The blood throbs so hard in my veins that I’m afraid they’ll burst.

“By the time he’s read your letter, he will, mark my words,” she says darkly, and then carries on dictating in her queenly voice.

“Start a new paragraph: ‘But I took you in, Robert. How? Perhaps because, like Georgiana, I was always an actress. Most of all, because the mile-high dollar signs I saw whenever I looked at you made everything—the pain, the punishment—easier to bear.’ ”

“ ‘The mile-high dollar signs I saw whenever I looked at you’ is exactly the way in which Robert described that greedy man Murray, the owner of Le Château, who introduced him to Pamela—or rather, you—looking at him whenever he went to Le Château!” I say.

“Most perceptive of you!” she says, with a light laugh.

“But Robert will know I didn’t write that letter! He’ll know!” I say, exultant.

“The only thing he’ll know, Miranda, is that you cleverly recalled the exact phrase he used when he described Murray to you. Whereupon you craftily appropriated the identical sentiments for yourself and repeated them in this letter. And, knowing Robert as I do, I can assure you he will take that as yet further evidence of your innate cunning, your perfidy.”

She’s right. Of course he will. He’ll think that about me and a million worse other things as well.

“Not much more to go now, so let’s finish and be done with it. Next paragraph: ‘I bore it all, the punishment, the pain and the humiliation, Robert, because I knew that if I did, you would immediately hire me to ghost your autobiography and that I’d make millions from it. More than that, I knew that if you believed that I was the submissive of your dreams, you would trust, love, and marry me, and I would become Lady Miranda Hartwell, with all the fame and fortune that entailed.’ ”

Robert will never believe a word of this. He can’t.

“Don’t stop, cupcake, time waits for no woman,” Georgiana says, and if my chain were long enough to reach her face, I’d punch her. But it isn’t, so I clench my right fist, and with my other hand write the words she orders me to.

“That’s what I planned, Robert, that’s what I intended. But then I became enthralled by you, with everything you are, your godlike body, your handsome face, your strong, commanding voice, your piercing green eyes, your power, your glory, everything.”

“And now the final paragraph, the—what do the French call it?—coup de grâce. Take this down word for word: ‘Robert, because of everything you are, everything you do to me, you have captivated me completely. And that, as I’m sure you know, is my greatest fear, the fear I’ve lived with since my childhood. Of being captivated, out of control, and consumed by the all-embracing terror that once I show you how much I love and need you, you will abandon me without another thought. I just can’t risk that happening to me, Robert, I can’t. Which is why I had to leave you, before you could leave me. Please understand, and forgive me.’ ”

As tears flow from my eyes, Tamara snatches the letter away from me and passes it to Georgiana.

“Let me read it through one more time before she signs it,” she says.

And she does, enunciating every syllable in her best cut-­crystal Downton Abbey way, while I sob as if my heart was breaking. Which, of course, it is.

After she has read the letter, she hands it back to me, and then, as an afterthought, offers me her white lace handkerchief.

“We don’t want the ink to run all over the letter, now, do we, cupcake?” she says, and after I wipe my tears away, I fight to stop myself from strangling her, just like she made Robert pretend to that night in the Honeymoon Suite—as he told me after Palm Beach and our romantic interlude there, when our love deepened and I first heard “our song.” Our song . . .

“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.