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get back to your grandfather,” I said to Gabriel.
    “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Gabriel bowed to me and then to Locke before turning to stride across the lawn. Even in his humble clothes he looked far more confident than when he’d arrived.
    “What was that about?” Locke asked, arching a brow.
    “I knew his grandfather as a girl.”
    “I see.” She knew there was more, but I wasn’t ready to share. I didn’t know if I would ever love anyone the way I had Gabriel, but I had a lot of years to figure it out.

    TWO DAYS LATER, I WAS in the library when Samuel appeared. “Someone to see you, Miss O’Hare.”
    “Who is it?” I looked up from the letter I was writing.
    “Gabriel Smithson.”
    “Show him in here, please.” What could he want with me so soon? I hoped it wasn’t bad news. Perhaps he’d come to tell me his grandfather was dead.
    The thought brought me to my feet, so I was standing when young Gabriel entered. His face was drawn, his eyes filled with pain. “What is it?” I asked. My heart thumped loudly in my chest.
    “My grandfather is dying. I’m sorry, but . . . he’s asking for you. He won’t say why. I expect . . . maybe he wants to thank you.”
    I called for a carriage and went at once. The farmhouse was larger than I expected, and far more masculine. Gabriel’s wife had evidently been dead a long time. I was shown to his room, where I found a frail, wizened figure in a large bed, the light—or life force, as I’d learned it was called—around him faded and weak. As I sat in the chair by the bed, he opened his eyes. Warmth shot through me. He was my Gabriel. There was no mistaking the eyes, despite the white haze clouding them.
    His gaze shifted to his grandson. “Please, give us a moment.”
    When the boy was gone, Gabriel took my hand. “Ava.” The word sounded like a sigh. “I knew it was you the moment I saw the necklace. But how? You haven’t changed a bit.”
    I had Changed—and far more than he’d ever suspect. “Your eyes are old,” I said. “You must be seeing a memory.”
    “I see well enough.” A pause and then, “Ava, I never stopped loving you.”
    There was no sense in pretending. “Nor I, you.”
    He smiled at that. “Keep watch over my boy, will you?”
    “I will.”

Part Three
    Fifty Years Later
April 1845 - Natchez, Mississippi
    Free at Last

WHEN BETSY SIGNALED FROM THE back hallway near the hotel dining room, her dark face was flushed, her eyes wild. My jaw hardened as I let the newest letter from Gabriel’s second great-grandson fall to my lap. Betsy obviously had found something in her investigation of the slave pens.
    I nodded once, letting her know that I would meet her in my rooms. Slaves weren’t allowed in the dining area of this upscale hotel, though they could help their owners in the privacy of their own rooms. Betsy had been free for a decade and living in the North for the past five years, but in this town, home to the second largest slave market, it was wise to keep up appearances. Drinking a final casual sip of my afternoon tea, I placed the porcelain cup on the delicate saucer, picked up my reticule, and arose.
    “Miss!” A motion to my left had me shifting imperceptibly into a better defensive position. Despite my layers of petticoats and skirts, no one in the dining room could be much danger, but I was always prepared. I touched the handle of a knife, hidden in the folds of my dress.
    A man bent and picked up my letter that had fallen to the richly tiled floor, his muscles rippling under his tailcoat. I caught a glimpse of a red silk vest under the coat. “You dropped this.” His eyes bore into me as he stood, and for a moment, I didn’t breathe.
    Ah, it’s you, I thought. I’d noticed him when I’d come into the dining room. I’d even felt regret that I wasn’t in Natchez on some pleasure trip that might allow me to meet him. He had light blond hair with a high widow’s peak, intelligent blue eyes,