Read 1 Forget Me Knot for Free Online

gate swung inward. I looked up into a security camera pointed at my face. At the end of a long driveway stood a very large, white, colonial, two-story mansion with eight columns in front divided by a porte cochere. Holy crap. Bring out the mint juleps, Hattie. I think I’ve landed at Tara .
    My knock was answered by a red-haired maid dressed in a black dress with a starched white apron. “Please do come in, Miss Rose.” She had the same lilting accent I heard on the phone yesterday. “Mrs. Terry’s expecting ya.”
    Who has Irish servant girls these days? I stepped inside a foyer the size of my entire living room and easily two stories high. The creamy walls were washed with natural light from a window high above the porte cochere. A red silk Tabriz carpet lay in the middle of the white marble floor. Directly ahead was a graceful curving staircase of dark, polished mahogany. To the left was a set of closed double doors and to the right a wide entrance leading into a living room.
    I was glad I wore my good pearls with a silk blouse and my Anne Klein skirt. I followed the maid to the right and tried to ignore the slight swishing sound my panty hose made as my thighs rubbed together. I’d been blessed with a Jewish figure: large bosoms and a smallish waist with abundant thighs and rear end.
    Siobhan Terry sat like a small bird in an armchair generously upholstered in blue damask. Her long hair was arranged on top of her head creating a white halo around her face. I guessed she was Birdie’s age, but aside from the hair, the similarity ended.
    Aquamarines sparkled in her ears, and her gray cashmere sweater hugged her tiny figure. She looked at me with eyes the color of her earrings and extended her right hand but did not rise.
    I wrapped both of my hands around the older woman’s. Her fingers were bony and dry. A huge diamond ring pressed sharply into my palm. “Mrs. Terry, I’m Martha Rose.”
    “So good of you to come. Please, sit here.” She indicated a matching chair near hers.
    I sat and looked around the room. The blue silk drapes pooled extravagantly on the creamy wool carpeting. Crystals hanging from a massive chandelier deflected shards of light around the room. A seventeenth-century oil painting of fruit and flowers on a dark brown background hung over a massive fireplace. Didn’t I once see this very painting at the Getty Museum? If so, it was worth a gazillion dollars.
    The maid wheeled in an old-fashioned tea cart with a silver tea service, Belleek china, platters of finger sandwiches, and fancy small cakes.
    Siobhan picked up the teapot with both hands. “What do you take in your tea, Ms. Rose?”
    “I prefer milk or cream, and please call me Martha.”
    The older woman sighed. “The only way to enjoy it, I think. You must call me Siobhan.”
    The maid placed a small plate, fork, and linen napkin on the small table next to my chair and brought the platters of food over.
    I felt like a schoolgirl taking an important test I hadn’t studied for. What if I spilled something on the pristine furniture or, God forbid, on the creamy wool carpeting? I looked longingly at the chocolate petit fours but chose instead a small cucumber sandwich and a vanilla cookie because if I dropped either of them, the damage would be invisible.
    When the maid left the room, Siobhan put down her tea and looked at me with tears in her eyes.
    I braced myself.
    “Please tell me about my daughter.”
    I felt a rush of empathy for this grieving mother. God forbid anything should happen to Quincy. My own tears would never stop.
    I pretended I didn’t know where this conversation was headed. “Well, I didn’t know her very well. . . .”
    “I mean tell me how you found her. What did she look like?”
    Rats! “Siobhan, I don’t think—”
    “Please. I want to know. Did she suffer?”
    “I really can’t answer that. When we got there, she was already gone. She was lying on the floor like she just went to sleep.” I was not