A Lasting Impression

of it, and the woman was a sight to behold. After seeing her manage those negotiations . . .” He shook his head. “It wasn’t an easy time in her life either. She’d just lost Mr. Acklen. And at the time he died, she hadn’t seen him in over a year and a half.”
    “Why so long?” Claire nodded to a couple who strolled past.
    “The war. When Fort Donelson fell, we all knew it was only a matter of time before Nashville would fall too. Adelicia encouraged him to leave before that happened. She thought he was needed more at their Louisiana plantations and that he’d be safer there. Sure enough, a week after he left, the Federals occupied Nashville, and they began identifying hearty secessionists. ” He said it with a note of bitterness, and Claire understood why. “Adelicia was named, and most certainly Joseph would have been as well. Like my father was.”
    Claire slowed her pace to match his.
    “The last letter she received from Joseph was in late summer of sixty-three. He wrote telling her that the Confederates had confiscated all the mules and horses, and that he was afraid they were going to burn almost three thousand bales of cotton to keep it from falling into enemy hands. Joseph died about a month later from malaria, which left Adelicia in Nashville with a fortune in cotton about to be burned in Louisiana.”
    They reached the corner and he headed toward the right.
    Claire glanced back in the direction they’d come. “Are you sure Armstead will be able to find us? Maybe we ought to head back.”
    “I told him we might go for a walk.” He checked his pocket watch again. “We have some time yet.”
    They resumed their pace, and Claire found herself picturing Mrs. Acklen hearing the news about her second husband’s death, after everyone else she’d already lost. “So you escorted her to Louisiana?”
    He nodded. “I got special leave from my unit and took her and her cousin Sarah to the plantation, where Adelicia somehow convinced the Confederates to guard the cotton for her. She promised them she was going to ship it to England and sell it there, which she did. But she needed a way to transport it to New Orleans, and the Confederates didn’t have any wagons. So—in the middle of a war, mind you—she managed to persuade some Federal officers to loan her their teams and wagons to move the cotton to the river.”
    “Where the cotton”—Claire continued for him—“was then loaded and sent to Europe and sold for a small fortune.” She leaned close. “I read that part in the newspaper article.”
    They walked for a while, his hand covering hers on his arm, until finally they came to a corner. He stopped and turned to her. “I know this past week hasn’t been an easy one for you . . . with my mother here. I want to thank you for how patient you’ve been with her.”
    “You don’t have to keep saying that, Sutton. She’s your mother, and I’m happy to do it.”
    He touched a curl at her forehead. “She told me you invited her to join you one morning, when you paint.”
    “She said she used to draw. I thought she might enjoy doing it again.”
    “I think I was still a boy the last time I saw her sketch. She drew the framed pictures you saw on my bedside table.”
    “Really? I’m impressed.” She had confessed to him about visiting his room more than just that once while he was gone to Louisiana. At which time he had confessed to taking the joujou on the mantel in her bedroom the morning he left. She hadn’t even noticed it missing.
    “Thank you for having dinner with me tonight, Claire, and I’m sorry I made you walk all the way here, but . . .” He led her around the corner and gestured down the street. “I wanted you to be surprised.”
    Seeing what lay ahead, Claire let out a little squeal and threw her arms around his neck.

49

    O pera patrons lined the walkway leading into the Adelphi Theater, and Claire couldn’t have been more proud to be escorted by Sutton. Though she didn’t remember most of the couples’ names, she recognized many of them from the LeVert reception and nodded a silent greeting when they looked her way.
    “What opera are we seeing?” she whispered.
    Nearing the doorway, he nodded toward the billboard, and she felt a thrill. Faust.
    She squeezed his arm. “I’ll understand every word!”
    “I know.” He pressed his hand against the small of her back as they entered. “So you can explain the parts to me that I’ve never