In <I>Never Before</I> and <I>Never Again,</I> award-winning author Jo-Ann Power evoked the drama and elegance of the Gilded Age with wonderful romances of American heiresses Victorian England would never forget. Now, in a tale as lavish as the age itself, she portrays the last and youngest of these ladies -- as beautiful as they are spirited, as enchanting as they are wealthy...the American Beauties. <P> Augusta VanderHorn knows too much about scandal. As the younger sister of the infamous American beauty, Colleen VanderHorn, who wed British Lord Bryce Falconer, and was divorced for adultery, it's been hard for Gus to avoid the taint. Now she is embroiled in scandal herself, for Colleen has kidnapped her own child from his father, to hold him for ransom to support her latest lover. Gus knows it's vital to help find her nephew, but she harbors a secret reason for wanting to assist in the search. Gus is in love with the man her sister married. For Bryce, she'll do anything, even risk her reputation -- and her heart -- by traveling at his side on a quest to rescue his child. <P> Bryce Falconer is a man driven by two passions -- the love of his adored son, and the hatred of the wife who left him for a string of lovers. But thrown together with his young ex-sister-in-law in desperate pursuit of his missing child, Bryce is discovering a new passion. Little Augusta, who was once his dearest friend, has become an alluring woman whose sensual beauty sends him reeling. At long last, Bryce is learning what a miracle true love between a man and woman can really be...from the only woman whom God and English law forbid him to ever love.