Brenda Joyce.

Violet Fire.

Prologue.

New York City.

November 1, 1873.

"Rathe, I'm so glad you could come."

Rathe Bragg's smile was easy and devastatingly charming as he shook Albert van Horne's hand. He had just stepped into the huge, marble- columned foyer of van Horne's Fourteenth Street mansion. The ceilings were twenty-five feet high and decorated with intricately painted cherubs floating on a bank of clouds. A staircase and massive rosewood and brass banister curved upward toward the mezzanine, the steps carpeted in royal red from the Orient. Classical busts frowned at Rathe from green marble bases, and a chandelier the size of two grand pianos hung from the ceiling, shimmering with thousands of crystals. Rathe had seen his share of fabulously appointed homes, but even he was impressed.

"It's my pleasure, Albert. You know that," he said warmly, meaning it.

Albert van Horne, who had been financing the railroads since before the outbreak of the Civil War, returned Rathe's smile. He threw his arm around the young man's shoulders and together they strol ed through a vast black and white marble-floored hal . "How are you, Rathe?"

"Fine, sir, and you?"

"As hale as possible, I think," van Horne replied. "I've heard rumors that you'l be leaving us again shortly."

"Yes sir, I'm afraid so."

"I have some business I'd like to discuss with you before you go." Van Horne shook his head. "Rathe, you'l be thirty in a few years. You just got back from Europe and now you're off again. It's time you thought of settling down. Build yourself a home. Put down roots."

"I'm afraid it's business-not pleasure-that's taking me away this time. I've invested in a mining venture in Vancouver. We've had a hel uva time getting this operation off the ground. I'm headed up there to find out what or who is holding up the works."

"You think it could be a matter of human error?" Van Horne asked.

"Possibly calculated human error," Rathe returned, with a surprising, hard chil to his tone. He was a beautiful man, tal , broad-shouldered, lean- hipped, bronzed from a lifetime out of doors, his hair a riot of gold, his face perfectly sculpted. Yet now, al of his easy charm, so irresistible when coupled with his blond good looks, was gone. He suddenly seemed menacing.

They entered a huge and opulent salon, with thick Persian rugs underfoot and a frescoed ceiling overhead. The salon was nowhere near ful , for tonight's dinner was just an intimate gathering of twenty or so, al in formal evening wear.

Rathe glanced around the room, nodding at those nearest him and seeking out Mrs. van Horne, a bland-looking, overweight woman. "Jocelyn, it's wonderful to see you again," he said warmly, then kissed her hand. "I see you've done some redecorating. The place looks beautiful."

"Oh, do you think so?" Jocelyn asked worriedly, biting her plump lower lip and crossing her arms over her massive bosom. "I do wonder if the reds and purples real y go together. You have such good taste, Rathe. Tel me truthful y, do you real y think they're al right?"

"Fit only for kings and their queens," he said, grinning and sweeping her a mock bow. "My lady."

She giggled.

Thadeus Parker, a real-estate magnate and a good friend, clasped his hand firmly. "Good to see you, my boy. Heard you've been up to more crazy escapades. Climbing cliffs in the Alps?"

Rathe grinned. "We cal it rock climbing, Thad, and it's quite a sport."

"Quite a way to kil yourself, if you ask me."

Rathe chuckled. "That's half the thril . But I have no intention of getting myself kil ed-there's too much I haven't done yet."

"It's a good thing you were born under a lucky star," Parker said. "Because one fal is al it takes. You know, Rathe, most men would give anything for your luck."

Rathe raised an eyebrow. "In business, at cards, or with women?"

Parker laughed. "Al three!"

"How's Elizabeth?" Rathe asked. "And the girls? The last time I saw those two I was in jeopardy of losing my heart twice over!"

Parker beamed. "Elizabeth is very wel , thank you, and of course, the girls have heard you're in town and are begging to see you."

Parker's daughters were thirteen and fifteen and actual y too plain to have admirers swooning at their feet. "I'l stop by tomorrow," Rathe promised.

"I've brought them a few gifts from Paris."

"You spoil them," Parker chastised gently.

Rathe chuckled, exposing two deep dimples. "How could I not spoil those two?" And he meant it.

He nodded at a steel magnate, a textile king, the publisher of the New York Evening Post, and the famous socialite lawyer, Bradley Martin, and his wife, Cornelia. He was about to move toward the latter when something hard came banging down on his arm. He could tel by the feel of the blow that it had come from old Mrs. Anderson's cane. He turned, smiling, and was rapped once again. The diminutive, white-haired woman glared. "You come in here and talk to everyone in the room but me, you scoundrel!"

Rathe took her clawlike hand with its huge emerald ring and kissed it gal antly. "You're too quick for me, Beatrice, and you know it."

She scowled. "You haven't come to visit me in a week, boy!"

"I came yesterday, remember?" he said gently, stil holding her hand. The redoubtable widow had been the wife of a prominent banker and the hostess nonpareil of her generation. She was thus stil deferred to and invited to al of society's functions, although some thought her senile. "Did you enjoy the French chocolates I brought you?"

Her faded blue eyes suddenly lit up. "I did indeed! Next time you bring me two boxes, not one!"

He had to smile. "Beatrice, you didn't eat the entire box already, did you?"

"Of course not," she huffed.

He fingered her shawl, another gift from him. It was made of the most delicate silk, a vivid, shimmering green which clashed terribly with her pale blue gown. "I see you like the shawl?"

She melted. "It's beautiful, Rathe. I wear it every day. But next time you go abroad you must take me with you. Then I can buy my own shawls and candies. I haven't been to Paris in far too long. I'm not getting any younger, you know."

Mrs. Anderson was wel into her eighties. "It's a long, hard trip," Rathe said softly, seriously. "When I arrive in London, I'm exhausted for a week. A terrible trip."

"Hmm." She pursed her mouth. "Yes, I remember, it's a very long voyage. Maybe it is too much for me at my age."

"You just tel me what you want me to bring you next time, Beatrice, and I wil ."

"You're a good boy," she said, touching his cheek.

"Thank you," he said. Then, with a twinkle in his blue eyes, he winked. "I know."

Her cane came down again on his arm. "Pride goeth before the fal ."

Rathe just grinned.

Van Horne walked over to them with a striking blond woman. "Have you met my niece, Rathe?" he asked. "Patricia Darning? Perhaps you ran into her husband while you were in London?"

Rathe turned to the beautiful blonde. He took her hand and kissed it casual y. "No, I don't believe I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Darning. But I am acquainted with his lovely wife," he said, dimpling, "which is how I know that Darning is a very lucky man."

Patricia was staring at him intensely. "Thank you. I hear you just came back from Europe?" she asked politely.

"Yes. The Alps. Paris, London."

"How nice," she murmured.

Rathe turned his attention back to van Horne. "By the way, when I was in England visiting my brother I stopped at a Devon stud farm and purchased a colt and two broodmares. The mares are proven, but Albert," Rathe said as his eyes flashed, "the colt is superb. A real winner."

"Why don't you tel me al about it tomorrow over breakfast at the club?"

A dazzling smile broke out on Rathe's face. "Good. And we can discuss the business you mentioned earlier, as wel ."

Van Horne agreed and moved away, mingling with his other guests.

"I missed you today," Patricia said in a low, careful voice. "I came by your hotel, but you weren't there. I waited for an hour, Rathe."

"I'm sorry, Trish, but I was in a meeting." He smiled, glancing around the room. Then, because no one was paying them any mind, Rathe held her gaze with heady promise. A smal smile tilted the beautiful curve of his mouth; his hand touched her waist, his thumb moving sensual y across her satin gown. He leaned close. "We can make up for lost time later, don't you think?" His drawl was pure west Texas, both smooth as silk and rough as sandpaper.

"Meet me upstairs in the blue guest room in half an hour," Patricia whispered, and then she walked away.

For a brief moment, Rathe gazed after her. He was remembering their last hot interlude. But lately, Patricia had started hinting that she would be amenable to divorcing her husband, Darning. She had also begun questioning Rathe about his half-brother, Nick, who, although a quarter Indian, like himself, was the current Lord Shelton, Earl of Dragmore.

The fact that Nick and Rathe's mother was the last Lord Shelton's daughter was no secret, yet Rathe never referred to it. How Patricia had found out was beyond him, but apparently she had been doing some detective work. And when a woman began investigating, wel , it meant she had certain serious intentions.

Rathe supposed he ought to put an end to her machinations by tel ing her the truth. He wasn't ready to settle down; he doubted he would be for another decade-at least. It wasn't that he was against marriage, because he wasn't. Someday he would meet the right woman and have a family, the way his father had when he'd met his mother. But that day was a long way off yet and there was a whole world waiting for him out there. After Canada he was going to sail to China on a merchant clipper in which he had recently purchased shares. After al , he had never been to the Orient before.

Stil , he couldn't help feeling a touch sorry for Patricia, though he had never made her any promises, and she was already married. Why was it that women al wanted to marry him? Especial y the proper kind. Even before he had made his first mil ion, they seemed to start thinking about the altar just as soon as they laid eyes on him.

Rathe chatted amiably with van Horne's guests, finding the time to say a few brief words to everybody, but exactly thirty minutes later he was entering the blue guest room and closing the heavy rosewood door behind him. Patricia was waiting with a look no man could possibly mistake. Rathe pul ed her slowly and completely against him. "Hel o, Trish," he murmured, and then his mouth found hers gently, stroking and sensual. He plundered with his tongue, ful y aroused now, pressing his hot hardness against her, rubbing lithely back and forth. She moaned. He cupped a smal breast and kneaded it.

"Oh, Rathe, Rathe," she gasped, her hands wild in his thick sun-streaked hair.

"I know, darlin', I know," he groaned back.

Her dress was ful -length, the latest style from Paris. It boasted a fashionably ful bustle and a set of col apsing hoops, which annoyed Rathe immensely-especial y at times like these. He pul ed it up to her waist with skil ed determination. His hand immediately went to her thigh, delicately tracing its inner softness to the wonderful y ful and swel ing joining of her legs. She sagged against the door. Deftly he found the opening in her scanty silk drawers, then the damp, warm flesh, stroking gently, searching, gliding insistently. She shuddered and whimpered.

He kissed her softly, barely, teasingly. His tongue played and tormented. "Come on, darlin', come on, reach for the stars," he drawled thickly, urgently.

She moaned, a low, ragged sound, then tensed and cried out, again and again.

"Darlin'," he whispered, swiftly unbuttoning his trousers. Swol en and thick, he bent his knees, and thrust in. She gasped. He did, too.

With her legs around his waist and her back against the door, she rode him as he moved, hard, rhythmical y, his face buried in her neck.

"Rathe," she whimpered, "I think- oh." She sobbed.

With his own guttural cry, he exploded, spasm after spasm of his hot seed fil ing her.

After they had regained their breath and as they readjusted their clothing, Rathe squeezed her waist fondly. "Sweet," he murmured. "Now let's go before we're missed."

She gave him a look of utter adoration.

Twenty minutes later they sat to dinner amidst white linen, crystal, and Chateau Rothschild. The conversation soon turned to everyone's favorite scandal, the Woodhul affair.

Victoria Woodhul and her sister had been running an extremist women's weekly, which advocated, among other things, the right of women to love whomever and whenever they chose. Recently, Victoria Woodhul had accused Henry Ward Beecher, a leader of the National Women's Suffrage Association, of having an affair with Elizabeth Tilton, the wife of a reformist editor. Woodhul had gone on to cal Beecher a hypocrite and coward for not supporting free love publicly. Then the Women's Suffrage Association responded by breaking with the Woodhul sisters, who were arrested for printing obscene literature. At the present, the papers were ablaze with the scandal, and the public hungry for any bit of gossip they could provide.

"I, for one, think Woodhul 's guilty," Cornelia Martin announced. "Imagine, printing stories on free love in her little newspaper-of course it's obscene material."

"That entire paper is obscene," said van Home. "Advocating free love for women and men? My God, it's atheistic!"

Rathe couldn't help grinning at that. "I happen to think free love is an interesting idea," he murmured dryly.

Patricia glared at him. Some of the men chuckled.

"Keep your nasty opinions to yourself, young man," piped up Beatrice Anderson. Rathe met her scowl with an exaggerated wink.

"From the very beginning," van Horne went on, "these crusading women have been nothing but promiscuous immoral free-lovers and man-haters -that's quite obvious."

"Quite," agreed Thadeus Parker.

"Actual y, I am entirely in support of women's suffrage," said the publisher, Bradford Ames. "But as long as they've got these rabble-rousers trying to destroy our American institutions, why, I'm afraid they'l never get the vote."

"Do you think she'l be found guilty?" Patricia asked, referring to Victoria Woodhul .

A rousing argument ensued, carrying them through dinner.

Afterwards, the ladies adjourned to the salon for coffee and sweets, while the men retired to their brandies and cigars in the library.

"I'l take two," Rathe said, a cigar clamped firmly between his teeth.

The library was almost silent, except for the low sound of male voices and the occasional clink of their brandy snifters. Rathe casual y picked up the two cards the dealer slapped on the gleaming oak table.

He had shed his black cutaway evening coat and his silk tie. His sleeves were rol ed up to his elbows, revealing large strong forearms. His silver and blue waistcoat hung open across a broad expanse of chest. He puffed on the cigar, watching closely as van Horne took two cards, Parker one, Bradford Ames two, and Martin three.

The library, like the rest of van Horne's home, was boldly opulent. The rug was Oriental, a pattern of twining red and turquoise and gold. The wal s were a gold brocade, the draperies gold velveteen. The woodwork was mahogany, the furniture rosewood, the work of the famous New York furniture- maker, Henry Belter.

"I'l cal ," Rathe drawled.

Suddenly from outside the quiet room there came a shriek. It sounded like "Liberate!"