The Eye Stones — Harriet Esmond

In the thickening twilight the train rumbled along the edge of a heath. The farther the train progressed, the more desolate its surroundings became. They were traveling into a desert, deep inland yet as sandy as the seashore, along untilled wastes littered with a white-edged flint.

Deborah Ritchie journeyed to the barren, forbidding little village in eastern England to seek comfort from her half-sister after their father's death, but she arrived to discover that her sister too was dead and that her own presence was endangered not only by the terrible sandstorms of the region but by the rivalry between Sir Randall Gaunt, surgeon-widower, and Justin Stannard, Lord of Stannard Priory.

Sir Randall's life was haunted by a death in the past: Lord Stannare was involved with strange nighttime happenings in the priory. Yet it soon became clear that Deborah would have to choose between these two men -- and that her life depended on her choice.