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his clan.
     
    He cried when he received the news. Then he cut his hair… and immediately after, packed his saddle bags. The ritual slashing of his body must wait until he returned home. He'd need his strength for the long trail ahead. The war was over, and in many ways, in the mournful days to come, it seemed as though his life were over too.
     
    His father had been his ideal. Brave, honest, gentle, everything a son could look up to. As head chief, he could have been a prideful man, but never was. He listened to everyone with kindness and as Hazard grew up, he tried to be like him. His mother had been a tall, handsome woman and his father's only wife. She could make the day bright with her smile, and her unconditional love had always nurtured and sustained Hazard.
     
    It was a sad, bleak homecoming to the hundreds of graves and grieving clansmen when Hazard rode into his village three weeks later. After he'd seen to his parents' burial sites, he slashed his forearms and chest and legs, and with the blood slowly seeping from his wounds mingled a deep and terrible sense of loss.
     
    THE young girl who once sighed at her bedroom windows on rainy nights in Boston had been transmuted into a slender, voluptuous woman, strikingly beautiful. The wide-set azure eyes, full of radiant curiosity, held within them a new maturity. She'd seen much of the ways of polite society and proper manners in those years. Her flame-red mane of hair was unchanged, the spoiled alluring mouth had only become more tempting, while the untamed temper and tendency to release frustration explosively were whispered by some to be a shade less than genteel. Many thought she addressed herself to life with a bit more independence than considered wholly respectable. These unfortunate attributes were laid at the door of her father's doting regard and enormous wealth.
     
    Regardless of the gossip, Venetia "Blaze" Braddock, with her precocious, high-spirited beauty, was never without a score of ardent suitors. While she flirted, teased, intimidated, or spurned in her own scandalous fashion, she had not, in the parade of lovesick swains, found a man she cared to marry. Blaze was nineteen, and the more vindictive and uncharitable of society matrons remarked with snide satisfaction that she would soon be on the shelf. The untamed beauty had made her own bed, the slightly envious matrons whispered. She had snapped her fingers at every eligible party from Baltimore to Bar Harbor; it would serve her right if she turned into an old maid. Blaze would have laughed derisively had she known what was being said. Blaze Brad-dock had no intention of ever merely settling for someone to marry.
     
    And her indulgent father agreed. "When you find him, honey, you'll know," he told her. He didn't confide that he'd discovered the truth of this adage outside his own marriage, empty now of everything but malice. He was hoping for better luck for his cherished daughter. "Until then," he generously admonished, "enjoy yourself, with my blessing."
     
    "I'm trying, Papa, but most men are incredibly dull."
     
    "They've been taught their manners, is all, darling."
     
    "I'm not talking about manners. I mean their interests are so… so… worthless," she petulantly finished. "Do you know how shallow most of their brains are, Papa? A nail scratch would touch bottom. And when I bring up some topic of conversation that might be the teeniest bit interesting, they look at me blankly and then change the subject by telling me how beautiful I am."
     
    "Well, you are, baby girl of mine; you turn their heads." Billy Braddock's look was that of every proud and doting father.
     
    "I know I'm beautiful," Blaze calmly replied, impatience hurrying the last words, "but my God, Daddy, what the hell good is that going to do me if I die of boredom in the meantime with all these dull men I know?"
     
    "Don't let your mother hear you swear, baby. You know how she feels about that."
     
    Blaze shrugged