The time of the hunter's moon - Victoria Holt

When Cordelia Grant takes a post in a girls' school situated in the ruins of a Devon abbey, she she becomes disturbed by the sinister landowner, Sir Jason Verringer. Tension mounts when the school stages a pageant at the time of the Midsummer Moon and Cordelia is forced to re-live her own past experience of that mystical date...

During the last weeks of her stay in an exclusive finishing school in Switzerland, Cordelia Grant, in the company of three friends, had a strange experience in a nearby forest. It was at the time of the Hunter's Moon which was said to be of special significance, and the attractive man whom the girls encountered seemed to them to be a mysterious figure conjured up out of local legend. When Cordelia met him again she discovered that there was indeed something very extraordinary about him.

Returning to England where her much-loved Aunt Patty, who had been like a mother to her, was unable to carry out the plans they had made together, Cordelia took a post in a girls' school which was situated among the ancient ruins of a Devon abbey. There she became disturbed by Sir Jason Verringer, the local landowner to whom the abbey belonged, and whom she met for the first time when he was returning from his wife's funeral. He had a sinister reputation and there were rumours about his wife's death as well as unsavoury gossip concerning the mistress whom he had installed with her child - presumed to be his - in one of the houses on his estate. Yet in spite of her determination to remain aloof, Cordelia was drawn to him.

Tension mounted at the time of the Midsummer Moon when a pageant was staged by the school among the abbey ruins; and when Cordelia had news from the girls who had shared her forest adventure, she began to realise that the past was becoming dangerously entwined with the present.