Prologue

"After the first glass [of absinthe] you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world." – Oscar Wilde

A cold, black wave washes over him and he picks up the scent of cloves. He can hear the ocean, yet he lives more than a thousand miles from the nearest coast.

When the black water recedes, a splinter of moonlight parts the draperies and casts a luminous wedge of silver gray light into her darkened bedroom.

Images, feelings, memories all blur into a confusing mosaic. He feels a light kiss upon his lips.

Kiss him again. You know you want to.

The soft lips return and linger passionately. The large bed floats upon the waves in an undulating, see-saw fashion that makes him feel dizzy.

Where are the bed sheets? The room is so cold. May is a cold month at ten thousand feet. He is used to hot summers with nights as shiny and black as beetles' wings. The shift in climate worries him. He senses a chill upon the naked skin of his belly. His hands and feet feel enshrouded in ice like the buds of the aspen trees on frosty alpine mornings.

See how he wants this? she whispers. Just look at him.

A caressing hand wanders down his torso and strokes him...strong, rhythmic strokes. He wants to speak, but cannot locate any words.

"What?" he finally manages to say. Or has he merely thought he said it?

The hungry mouth kisses his neck, his chest, his belly. A warm tongue invades his navel, then travels farther south. She’s never kissed him there before. He flinches at the novel sensation.

The ocean roars in his ears and he picks up the scent of cloves again.

Another crash of breakers and he stands on a hot, sunny beach. He is nine years old and all his family is around him: his mother, his grandmother, his aunt, and his twenty-four-year old uncle, Brad.

They all wear bathing costumes, all except his grandmother, who is so old-fashioned as to believe such garments to be indecent.

Uncle Brad has brought with him his fiance, Miss Markham, who looks so stunning in her bathing ensemble she could be mistaken for an angel, a goddess. The other bathers openly gape at her and she soaks up their admiring gazes along with the broiling rays of the sun. His uncle dips his head beneath her dainty blue parasol and steals a kiss from her, as though to proclaim to the world, She’s mine.

Then Uncle Brad turns to him and says, Let’s go!

Miss Markham smiles and waves as they run off into rush of the oncoming waters. The sun has warmed the shallow depths but the sea grows colder as they head deeper. When the water reaches waist high, he stops, unable to go on. He sees a huge wave heading straight for his uncle. The sun glances off the crest of the water to blind him for an instant. He clenches his hands into fists and pinches coarse sand between his toes. Is Miss Markham still watching them? He worries that she will notice how scared he is.

He sees his uncle dive into the mouth of the breaker. The wall of water swallows him whole. He feels a moment of terror until Brad re-emerges on the other side, laughing as he pushes his dripping hair back from his face.

Come on, Kit, Don’t be scared!

He trembles as he braces himself for the looming monster to strike. The massive wave envelops him in its shadow before the force of it knocks him off his feet. He barrel-rolls out of control. Water shoots up his nostrils. He panics and chokes as he thrashes helplessly, not knowing which way is up.

Then a strong arm encircles his skinny chest and locks him in a tight grasp below his armpits. His face comes out of the water just inches from that of his laughing young uncle. He is so happy, he wants to cry. He coughs and sneezes at the same time, which makes Uncle Brad laugh harder.
Going to be all right?

He swallows hard, but manages to smile. He wraps his arms and legs around his uncle and kisses his cheek.

He opens his eyes again, but sees only darkness. Are his eyes open or not? The sandy beach has vanished, but there is the reassuring wedge of moonlight and he knows he is still in her bedroom.

“What? I...”

Are you mad? Someone will see us.

There's nobody around for miles. Come on.

He feels that luscious mouth at work on him, slow and sensuous at first, then faster.

“Time flies, time flies,” squawks the parrot in the corner.

“Stop,” he says with a growing sense of alarm. Will another wave hit him? Why are his arms and legs useless? Why does the bed float upon the ocean? Yet the wedge of moonlight does not waver. His thoughts collide and make no sense. The room is so cold, yet his loins are on fire, stealing all the blood from the rest of his body.

Waves of pleasure flood through him, stronger in force than the wall of water. He does not understand where he is or what is happening. He wants the mouth to stop its tantalizing motion. And he also wants it never to stop. He swells larger and harder in response, a slave to the exquisite sensations bearing him aloft.

“No,” he says in confusion, but the word sounds more like a plea than a command. The delicious feelings build to an intolerable peak. He longs for release, but he is afraid. Another wild breaker is headed straight for him. He braces himself for it to hit. Will the water feel cold or hot? Where is his uncle? Will no one rescue him?

He cannot hold back any longer. With an unstoppable moan, he spends it all, the blessed relief pulses out of him. He gasps for breath, then relaxes, undone and exhausted.

The scent of cloves fills his nostrils as wet lips press his cheek for one last kiss.

“Time flies, time flies.”

The black wave silently engulfs him once again, drowning him in the blissful refuge of sleep.

Chapter One
May, 1880

A second glass of absinthe is usually a mistake. Kit Randall had learned that much since his arrival in Leadville. He had come to this town in the clouds looking for the kind of fun that gives fun a bad name and absinthe never failed him on that score.

“Green” dreams were frequently strange and sometimes frightening, but could they produce a vision never imagined, much less experienced by its dreamer? Was that why Lucinda limited their adventures over the slotted spoon to once a week?

“We must be prudent, darling,” she would say. But she was prudent about so little else.

Waking up alone in the big bed, Kit yawned and stretched himself. How many hours had he slept? The sun shone through the sparkling, leaded panes of the bay window with such intensity and at so high an angle it must have been nearly noon. That the curtains were drawn open was Lucinda's not-so-subtle hint that he had slept too late.

He massaged his temples to try and soothe the brutal pounding in his head. He felt like an icepick had been forced into his brain. The pain radiated out in all directions, star-like, but gritty.

His mouth was dry as parchment. He looked for the bedside pitcher, but found it empty. He felt as though he did not have enough energy to fetch some water, though his thirst tormented him.

Lucinda poked her head in the room. “Oh, you’re awake.”

She walked briskly to the bedside, saw that the water pitcher was empty, and picked it up to refill it. She looked so beautiful in her lace dressing gown, which allowed a generous view of her bosom. She did not own a single dress that did not advertise those round, perfect breasts. Gazing down that enticing décolletage had aroused him through a hundred dinners and caused him to lose interest in the food before him. And Lucinda’s coy smile always told him she knew precisely the effect she was having though she often slid a wanton hand into his lap, just to check.

She even sometimes did this when they were dining with her son. This embarrassed Kit. If Christopher Ridenour raised his eyes from his plate at just the wrong moment, he would surely see what his mother was up to. Kit suspected she enjoyed the challenge of keeping a straight face while indecently fondling her young lover under the tablecloth. No wonder she had made a good living on the stage prior to her marriage.

Scandalous behavior carried few consequences for Lucinda. As the widowed heiress to the Eye Dazzler Mining fortune, she could pretty well do as she pleased and everybody knew it. Leadville, Colorado, was the richest mining district on earth and the richest mine there by far was the Eye Dazzler.

Twenty-year-old Christopher would not dare to object. He was the shyest human being Kit had ever met, a turtle of a boy, almost impossible to coax from his shell. He rarely spoke above a whisper and virtually never made eye contact with anyone. Kit barely knew the color of his eyes, they were so seldom visible, hidden beneath his downcast red-gold lashes.

He served as his mother’s accountant for the various Ridenour ventures which, in addition to the mine, included a casino on State Street called the High Life Club. Though the atmosphere of the High Life was a constant riot of high rolling mirth, Christopher seldom emerged from his tiny office in the back. He apparently found better company in his endless columns of figures and stacks of account books and his collection of carefully sharpened pencils all laid out in a row.

Kit could tell that the quiet boy was intelligent. In an unexpected moment he could offer a remark or opinion of surprising wit or insight. That Christopher did not mind Kit moving into their home and into his mother’s bed, gave Kit pause. But only a moment’s pause.

His eyes now fell upon the black, ebonized surface of the bed’s footboard. The elaborate carvings reminded him of ocean waves. He had not seen the ocean in more than a year.

Lucinda returned with the pitcher filled and he eagerly gulped water straight from it without bothering to pour it into a glass. This small breach of decorum made her frown.

His terrible thirst slaked at last, he wiped his wet chin on the bed sheet. "Lucy, tell the maid to make up the fire. This room is chilly."

Lucinda made yet another sour face. "I’ll have to start it up myself. You know Sadie won’t come in here when you’re not dressed."

"I'll put a robe on," he said, then muttered under his breath, "Like she’s never seen a man in his drawers before," in contemptuous reference to Sadie Branch’s previous profession in the State Street brothels. The Ridenour house did not seem able to attract servants with very nice reputations. He had wondered about this more than once.

"Never mind, Lucy."

He watched her fuss about the room, preparing for her day. Her long hair hanging loose upon her shoulders gave her a girlish look, despite her thirty-six years. He glanced up at the oil portrait of her above the mantel of her bedroom fireplace. In it, she reclined upon her favorite chair and held her parrot, Mr. Sparks. Even playing with a pet, she looked sensuous, with her cascade of reddish brown hair hanging down the chairback.

He had naively thought her hair was naturally red. After all, her son had red-tinged hair, though it tended toward strawberry blond.

He learned the truth one day when he watched her maid apply the henna. So much of Lucinda was artifice, would he ever know the balance of what was real and what was carefully contrived illusion?

"What’s wrong, darling boy? Why such a long face? Don’t you know I live to see those dimples each morning?"

Her round Southern vowels bloomed and dripped. He loved the lilting music of her voice so much he ignored the possibility that one of her Rebel relatives might have shot his father dead in '62. That savage conflict was fast becoming an old man's war. He had no memories of it, just as he had no memories of the father who died at the age of twenty-one, just the age he was now. Whenever Kit looked ahead in his life, he now thought of all the things his father had been cheated of. That somehow made the future all the more precious.

"I have a headache," he said with a slight pout.

"Poor baby. A hangover?"

"I didn't drink enough last night to cause a hangover."

"At this altitude, who knows? Do you want to take something? Let me go see what I have."

"You and your pills and powders. Sure, of course."

She brought him an envelope containing white powder. She had all sorts of concoctions at her disposal. Her dressing room was betters stocked than most pharmacies.

They indulged in a wide variety of drugs during their many decadent nights together. Opium from the Orient, hashish from Morocco, absinthe from France–-no sordid diversion fell beyond the reach of the Eye Dazzler money. Some of the drugs made Kit feel giddy, some sleepy, others made him think he was flying or that he possessed extraordinary strength. One memorable powder had the ability to prolong the sexual act ten times beyond the norm. He and Lucinda both woke up quite sore the morning after that one.

"What do you plan to do with your day?" she asked as she poured him a glass of water to mix the powder in.

"If I can get rid of this headache, I thought I would go down and work with that new gelding you bought. He’s crazy, you know."

"He’s just green. That’s why we got such a good price on him."

"He’s more than green. We might have to hire a professional trainer for him."

She was in her dressing room and might not have heard him. He could see her pulling out and then discarding a number of frocks. She went through this ritual every morning. He grinned and shook his head. With a perverse snicker, he added, "You like geldings, don't you, Lucy?"

"Of course, I do. It's the stallions and the mares who give you no peace."

He chuckled that she had missed his point. "Looks like a nice day. Why don’t you come down to the stables with me?"

"I’d love to, darling," she said from the recesses of her enormous closet. "Unfortunately. I have to go up to the mine today. Christopher insists that we meet with Jacob. He’s certain he’s found evidence of wrong-doing on him. He’s done something unforgivable and we’re going to have to sack him. George Hauser says we have no choice. It’s going to be a dreadful day. I'll need some your very special cheering up tonight."

"That’s what I’m good at. I live to amuse." He offered this lightly, but inwardly he sulked. He had originally hoped Lucinda would give him a position in one of the Ridenour companies. He was a college graduate after all, more than qualified to serve in any number of capacities. But three months had passed and he remained merely Lucinda's lover, her companion, her–-he knew that others in town had far more creative names for his current situation, but he did not want to think about them. His official title of "houseguest" did not fool many.

"What’s the story on you and old Jake?” he said, smirking with mischief. “Sadie Branch told me you took up with me just to spite him because he wouldn’t leave his wife for you."

She poked her head out of the dressing room. "Malicious gossip. Stop talking to the servants."

He could only guess at her past relationship with Jacob Landry, but the man was far from friendly on the few occasions Kit had crossed his path.

The first time he had been introduced to the Eye Dazzler's superintendent, Lucinda had behaved in a curious manner and he quickly realized that more was going on than a simple business meeting. They had all sat around a table in the anteroom of the late Orson Ridenour's old office. While Lucinda spoke of the renegotiation of smelting contracts, she placed her hand around Kit's neck and delicately stroked the skin above his collar as though he were a pet cat.

Landry's remarks had been formal and businesslike, but his dark eyes never left her slender fingers as they caressed her young lover's throat. Kit felt a cold heat radiate from the man's disturbing gaze so he removed himself from her toying embrace, resentful she had used him so. The damage was already done, however, the point decisively made.

Landry's parting smile at the end of that meeting had been the worst moment of all. The man had extended his hand and Kit took it, but for an instant, as Landry held it, his icy smile put the younger man in mind of a line from Macbeth. The nervous sons of the murdered Macduff had worried that "men's smiles have daggers in them," and Kit had never sought a moment alone with the Eye Dazzler superintendent after that. In fact, he had been more than happy just to get his hand back.

His thoughts returned to that bizarre absinthe dream. Why did it refuse to leave him? What had really happened here last night? In his only solid memory he had "watched the clouds come out." That was his euphemism for gazing at the slow, tantalizing process by which one prepares to drink the liqueur the French called la fée verte, the Green Fairy.

The light emerald liquid was dripped through sugar cubes that sat perched atop a slotted spoon. Icy water was then added which rendered a spectacular transformation. The clear green absinthe blossomed into a milky opalescence and was ready to sip.

He recalled settling back deep into the sea of sofa cushions in Lucinda's bohemian-inspired second parlor and staring up at the famous Eye Dazzler rug hanging on the wall. He loved to watch the bright zig-zagging pattern come alive. A thousand triangles danced before his eyes in a carefully terraced lockstep, vibrating red black white, red white black, hypnotizing him as it always did.

And then...just a nonsense kaleidoscope of images and feelings, some very erotic, yet all strangely ominous.

He tried to muster the energy to get out of bed, but instead collapsed back down into the bedclothes and stared at the painted clouds on the high ceiling of the room. He remembered seeing those clouds in his dream only they had floated over a raging seascape.
Then he caught the whiff of a familiar scent. He grabbed the pillow next to him and sniffed it. Cloves, no doubt of it.

No, no, no. Panic gripped him. His breath came in short, ragged spasms. "Lucinda?"
"Yes, darling?" she said from her dressing room.

"What happened here last night?"

She peered at him from around the edge of the door frame. A shadow crossed her face that seemed to age her ten years.

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