The Mark of Merlin Author:Anne McCaffrey First Edition — (Warning: Despite the title, this book contains *no* Arthurian/fantasy elements.) — Carla Murdock had learned what it was to be alone, growing up on different army posts. 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 guardia... more »n'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....
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"Major Regan Laird, at your service."
Carla Murdock stared at the man who had met her at the railway station, her gaze held partly by fascination, partly by horror.
Regan Laird had clearly once been handsome. One half of his face still had the perfection of a Grecian statue. The other half bore the livid scars of a gruesome wound.
Carla felt as if she were looking at two different men--one gentle and kindly, the other bitter and ruthless.
And desperately she wondered: Which one of these men now held her life in his powerful hands?« less