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“I will gae and fetch him,” Emma said, leaving her mother to try and cool her father’s temper.

Emma was more excited than she imagined to see Trevor again. She skipped toward the barn and waltzed through the door, expecting to find him still sleeping in the straw. However, he was not there. The shadow of his form was imprinted on the hay, but he was nowhere to be seen. She strained her ears and heard grunting breaths coming from outside the barn. She followed them outside. It sounded as though Trevor was fighting with someone, but she had no idea who he could have gotten into a fight with out here.

When she emerged from the barn, she saw him by himself, working on his form. He was shirtless, and his skin glistened with a sheen of sweat, just as the plants shone with morning dew. He bounced up and down on his heels and jabbed his hands into empty air, ducking and weaving just as he had done the previous night, although this time, there was no opponent to strike back. Even so, Trevor’s movements were intense, and he was pushing himself hard even though there was nobody in front of him. Emma felt a fluttering in her stomach at the sight of him displaying his manly strength, but she found herself bothered by the scars on his body. They formed a lattice around his flesh and spoke to a violent life. How much could she trust that he truly meant her mother no harm?

His body was lean and yet muscular, the angles all hard, and masculine energy seeped out of him. His body belied the fine clothes he wore, and she wondered just how much of him was a gentleman and how much was something worse. If he should mean harm to her mother, then she would never forgive herself for bringing him here, and if he did do anything to threaten her idyllic family, then she would see him dead herself, although she wasn’t sure how she was going to go about achieving such a thing.

When she felt as though she had seen enough, Emma cleared her throat to make her presence known. Trevor spun around, taken by surprise at her appearance. He looked to be on guard, but he relaxed when he realized where he was. His fists dropped, and he nodded at her, running a hand through his silky, thick hair.

“Morning, Emma.”

“Good morning. I’m surprised tae see ye up sae early.”

“Well, the animals were awake, so I thought I might as well get up as well.”

“Are ye preparing for another fight?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.

Trevor smiled. “I’m not planning on having one, but I can’t be too careful given how I’m an Englishman in a foreign land, and the locals don’t seem to be taking too kindly to me. I’ve been out of practice for a while, and I thought I should try and get back into shape,” he said, although Emma didn’t think there was anything wrong with the shape he had at the moment. She almost said such a thing but managed to keep the words lodged in her throat. She might well have died of embarrassment had she actually uttered the phrase.

Trevor stretched his body and then walked over to a bucket he had fetched from the well. He reached in with his palms and drank deeply from it, letting the water cascade down his chin and body. Then, he splashed water over himself and rubbed it across his biceps and under his armpits through the thick thatch of dark hair. He then dunked his head in it and shook his hair, just like a shaggy dog after rainfall. It sprayed out, and he looked refreshed.

“Would you like some?” he asked, but Emma declined. She found herself gazing at his shirtless body, quite forgetting herself and the usual rules of decorum, and she almost wanted to ask him about his scars. She was certain that each one of them would tell a story, but was it a story he wanted to tell? When she asked him last night about his history of fighting, he had shut the matter down almost immediately and clearly didn’t want to speak of it.

But the mystery was so intriguing…