A Lasting Impression
that?”
“I be tellin’ you why’s that, Miss Laurent.”
Claire nearly dropped the cups. She spun around to see Cordina standing behind her in a doorway she hadn’t even noticed was there. Hands on hips, Cordina wore a look that said somebody had better do some explaining. And fast!
17
C ordina huffed, eyeing the kitchen stove. “Here you go again, Mr. Monroe. Just helpin’ yourself to my kitchen. Like I ain’t even here.”
Claire stared, wide-eyed, not knowing to say. Or if she should say anything at all. She couldn’t believe Cordina was speaking this way to a man! Much less to Sutton Monroe. She didn’t even seem like the same woman who had welcomed her to the mansion. Claire started to volunteer to clean up their mess but hated to make things worse. She looked to Sutton for direction.
His expression was surprisingly calm. “Now see here, Cordina. We’ve talked about this before. I’m quite—”
“Comin’ in here, usin’ my stove this way. Fixin’ them plain ol’ eggs like you do.” Cordina picked up the egg pan and sniffed. “Not a shred of cheese in them things. Mmmph . . . ” She shook her head and glowered at the remaining biscuits. “I’m bettin’ you didn’t even give this poor girl any butter for them ol’ hard things either. Or any of my jelly.” She tossed up her hands. “Lawd, help me! This man’s stealin’ my joy.”
Slowly, it dawned on Claire what Cordina was frustrated about. It wasn’t that Sutton had used her kitchen, but that he’d cooked his own breakfast. Feeling a tickle of humor, she tried to get Sutton to meet her gaze. But he wouldn’t. As humorous as the situation seemed to her, she also sensed a thread of genuine irritation from Cordina.
Almost without thinking, she feigned a cough, and Sutton’s and Cordina’s attention angled to her.
She took a little gasp. “I nearly choked on those dry old biscuits,” she whispered, holding her throat. “If only I’d”—she coughed again—“had some jelly.” Uncertain whether she could hold back a grin, she found the determination to when seeing the start of their smiles.
Sutton eyed her, shaking his head. “Are you serious?”
Cordina let out a laugh. “Good for you, Miss Laurent! Us womenfolk, we got to stick together.”
Claire finally allowed the hint of a smile, pleased with herself for her small performance—but even more, with the glint of humor in Sutton’s eyes.
“Women,” he said beneath his breath, then looked at Claire, his gaze appraising. “I wouldn’t have thought you capable of such duplicity, Miss Laurent. Seems I underestimated you.” A wry smile tipped one side of his mouth. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
Cordina laughed, and so did Claire, outwardly. But not so much on the inside. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she’d heard a touch of seriousness in Sutton’s tone, and once again she was reminded of how important it was to keep him on her side.
Both as a colleague, and a friend.
By the time she left on her walk, the sun had risen, though a hush still lay over the house. True to Sutton’s word, a well-worn path wound its way through the grass-covered meadows and across the maple-dotted ridge to a creek bed below.
She spent the next hour searching and exploring, enjoying the discovery of wildflowers and foliage in the area and spying glimpses of approaching fall, little clues of color nature had hidden. Having missed taking walks in recent days, she reveled in the canted sunlight through the trees, the blue of sky, and longed for a fresh canvas, paintbrush, and palette with which to capture it all.
As she walked, she thought about the events that had led her to Belmont, and try as she might, she couldn’t see them as anything less than orchestrated. “Things happen for a reason, Claire.” She could hear her mother’s voice clearly in her mind. No telling how often her mother had said that to her. Looking back, she wondered if her mother had said it to encourage her, or to convince herself.
The soft, drawn-out coo of a mourning dove drifted toward her from over the hill, and Claire stared up into the cloudless sky. Until leaving New Orleans and arriving in Nashville, she hadn’t realized how heavy she’d felt inside. Not just lonely and alone but weighted down. Which didn’t make sense. How could she feel so empty and yet so weighted down with guilt?
She told herself it wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t wanted to forge those paintings.
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