Rendezvous at the Hallows — Juanita Tyree Osborne

It was a somber, stormy day when arrestingly handsome Geoffrey Nowland walked into Penelope Atkins's life through the door of her antique shop. Although unnerved by her inexplicably powerful attraction to him, Penelope was nonetheless quick to perceive the strange, abstracted demeanor of her customer. Despite his adamant insistence that only the present moment mattered, Penelope accurately guessed that Geoffrey Nowland's thoughts traveled often to the past and that the true dwelling place of his soul was his boyhood home, a plantation called The Hallows.

Although determined not to pry into Geoffrey's troubled past, Penelope could not stop her mother and her two maiden aunts from interrogating him when he accepted her invitation to Sunday dinner. To Penelope's old-fashioned mother and aunts a person's background was of primary importance. Only if the could certify Geoffrey's family credentials would they consider him an appropriate suitor for Penelope.

All too soon Penelope was apprised of the dreadful and tragic scandal that had forced Geoffrey to leave The Hallows in disgrace years ago. There was no denying the story--old newspaper accounts verified it--but Penelope stubbornly refused to believe it damning implications. She chose instead to trust the thrilling gray-eyed stranger she had come to love.

So in love was Penelope that she would follow Geoffrey anywhere--even to The Hallows, even to a rendezvous with ethereally beautiful Rowena Haddon Nowland, Geoffrey's first love.