Still, her movements were cautious as she took a step closer, and then another. When the man continued to sprawl, unmoving, in the shale, she concluded that he was probably only semiconscious at best, and breathed a little easier. Hesitantly she bent to touch him, first his shoulder, then his averted face. He was soaking wet, his clothing half frozen to his body, his hair dripping water, and yet his skin was fiery hot. Clearly he was ill. That realization made her feel much better, and she was almost at ease as she knelt down beside him, her hand firmer on his shoulder as she attempted to shake him to his senses. His only response was a groan as he tried to pull his shoulder away from her importunate hand.

“Can you hear me?” she asked insistently. “Sir?”

Whether in response to her hand or to her voice she didn’t know, but he rolled over, lying now on his back, motionless, his eyes closed. His body looked long and large against the shale; it would be impossible for her to shift him without help. She started to get to her feet, knowing she had to summon assistance even if it meant that the sisters would find out about her nightly perambulations. Then the moon came out from behind a cloud to shine its light directly on his face. Amanda stayed where she was, crouched beside him, staring at his face, transfixed.

His hair was as black as coal and curling, and she guessed that his skin would be dark, too, without the twin influences of illness and moonlight. His brows were thick and as black as his hair, and his lashes curled with incongruous and oddly disarming innocence against his lean cheeks. The rest of his face was hard, aggressively masculine though he was unconscious, with chiseled cheekbones, an arrogant blade of a nose, and a jaw covered with thick black bristles that effectively obscured the lower third of his face. But it was not all this that arrested Amanda’s attention, causing her eyes to widen with slowly dawning horror. It was the scar.