(Historical Fiction - Prequel to Beside Two Rivers.  Book 1 in The Daughters of the Potomac Series) A young woman longs for acceptance and leaves behind all she has in order to follow her heart and the man she loves into the Maryland wilderness. On a windswept night in April of 1775, Eliza Bloome sat at her father's bedside hoping he would recover. A servant arrived with a message for Reverend Bloome, a proposal of marriage that would set Eliza up for the rest of her life.   When Eliza learns of the proposal, she rejects it. She does not love the man who has offered her a comfortable life, but instead falls in love with Hayward Morgan, the slightly condescending son of a landed gentleman who has recently returned from America. Out on the misty moors of the Hope Valley, Hayward rescues her from the unwelcome advances of a local scamp.
