The Maid Who Touched the Lady's Necklace

CHAPTER 1 - THE PENDANT

“How dare you touch my necklace!”

Lady Eleanor Whitmore's hand closed around the young maid's wrist.

Clara Ruiz stood beside her in a black uniform and white pleated apron, her fingers still trembling from the silver-white pendant she had lifted from Eleanor's chest. She had only wanted to turn it over.

She had seen the small flower cluster before.

She had seen the teardrop pendant resting against her mother's throat during childhood illnesses, winter mornings, and the final photograph taken before the funeral.

“My mother had that necklace,” Clara said, struggling to breathe. “Where did you get it?”

“Your mother?” Eleanor released Clara's wrist with a sharp motion. “She could never have afforded this.”

Clara's cheeks burned.

“There is an M engraved on the back.”

Eleanor's fingers froze over the pendant.

The conversations around them faded. A glass stopped halfway to someone's lips. Even the piano seemed distant.

“How could you know that?” Eleanor asked.

Clara looked directly at her.

“She was buried wearing it.”

For the first time, Eleanor looked afraid.

She reached for Clara again, but not to punish her. Her hand hovered between them.

“What was your mother's name?”

“Marta Ruiz.”

Eleanor's face lost its color.

A man near the dessert table dropped his fork. He was older, dressed in a dark suit, and Clara recognized him as Thomas Vale, Eleanor's younger brother.

He stared at Clara as if she had stepped out of a grave.

Then he whispered, “Marta's daughter?”

And Eleanor turned toward him.

“You told me Marta had no child.”