The Mark of Merlin — Anne McCaffrey

ALONE WITH FEAR

Carla Murdock had learned what is was to be alone, growing up on different army post. But now her loneliness was new and terrible -- for her officer father had met a mysterious death on a foreign battlefield, and Carla was sent to live in her guardian's grim New England mansion.

From the moment she entered the doors of the old house, the delicate and lovely young woman knew they had not told her the truth about her father's end…a truth as chilling as the freezing gale that blew in from the white-capped sea, and as treacherous as the emotions she began to feel for the strange man who might be her protector, or her lover, or her deadly enemy…