A Lasting Impression

framed canvas clearly stated his ownership.
    AN AMERICAN VERSAILLES
    OIL ON CANVAS, 1867
    CLAIRE ELISE LAURENT, ARTIST
    ON LOAN TO BELMONT ART GALLERY
    BY WILLISTER SUTTON MONROE
    Willister . He’d used his full name just to get a smile from her. And it had worked.
    He stood before the canvas and she came alongside him. The past three months had flown by in one sense, yet had crawled by in another. Due in part to the trial, then to planning Dr. and Mrs. Cheatham’s wedding reception, but mostly because of her and Sutton having to find their way with each other again.
    It hadn’t been easy. Her failure to be forthcoming had been as much of a disappointment to him as she’d imagined it would be. But she held on to hope that, in time, the affection he’d felt for her—that she still felt for him, more than ever—might return.
    He pointed to An American Versailles, to a tree she’d painted just beyond the Belmont mansion where a boy knelt in the dirt. “How did you know I was burying those things for Zeke?”
    “Because I saw you one night from my bedroom window.”
    He laughed. “You little sneak. You hid things for Zeke too . . . while I was gone to Angola.”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “Because when I got back, he showed me everything he’d found that I hadn’t hidden. And I never hid silver dollars.”
    Claire curbed a grin. “Those could have been there for years.”
    “Not likely, Miss Laurent.” He reached for her hand and wove his fingers through hers. “Next time, if you want something to look like it’s been there for years”—he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it—“try dirtying it up a little before you bury it.” His breath was warm, his lips soft. “And choose coins that weren’t minted last year.”
    Claire laughed, but her eyes burned, her focus on their hands. He hadn’t touched her like this since the night of the auction. “Thank you again, Sutton,” she whispered. “For representing me in court.”
    He turned her hand palm up in his and traced feather-soft paths across her fingers. “Thank you for being the perfect witness. Your testimony in the fraud case made all the difference.”
    Evidence had revealed that the robbery of the gallery in New Orleans had been staged. Whether her father had been in on that part of the plan, she didn’t know. Antoine had taken out insurance on the art—listing himself as primary owner—and had collected nearly twenty thousand dollars from the insurance company. Of course, most of the art had been forged, unbeknownst to the insurance company.
    The trials had spanned ten weeks and had held Nashville—and every newspaper east of the Mississippi—spellbound. The juries—in each separate trial—had decided unanimously for the multiple plaintiffs. Antoine DePaul had been tried and found innocent of her father’s murder due to lack of evidence. But he was later convicted on multiple counts of fraud—as was another art dealer from Perrault Galleries—and both men awaited their separate sentence hearings. As did Samuel Broderick the second who had been convicted of lesser counts of fraud.
    Claire had no trouble imagining Antoine DePaul as the swindler that he was, but she did still find it difficult to believe that he might be capable of murder. That he might have killed her father was something she couldn’t fathom, and was a question she guessed would never be answered.
    She had testified against Antoine in court, and that was the last time she’d seen him. Or ever cared to again.
    Shortly following the trial, Holbrook and Wickliffe had become Holbrook, Wickliffe, and Monroe . A surprising turn of events made possible by Sutton’s contribution to the case. The name had a nice sound to it. Though Claire knew it wasn’t what Sutton wanted to do with his life, it was a step, and every step changed the view. Who knew what God would bring next?
    The jury for her trial had been generously lenient. Her “punishment” for the next year seemed anything but. Three times a week she held classes at the Worthington Art Center for any child who wanted to learn how to paint. The first day, thirty-six children had shown up.
    She’d managed to make “quiet mention” to Mrs. Worthington about Mrs. Monroe’s exemplary drawing skills, and Mrs. Worthington had wasted no time in extending a formal invitation to Eugenia Monroe to teach at the art center as well. Claire knew Mrs. Monroe still preferred Cara Netta LeVert for her son,