“Where’s my son?” he demanded.
“I—I—I have—”
“Who buried my son?”
The Abbess’s eyes turned wide.
Cullen dropped the sack to the ground and stood, brushing the dirt from his hands. “Bring him to me now.”
“I—”
“Now!” he bellowed, then tempered the anger boiling within him while renewed hope took hold.
His son was alive.
Chapter 3
Sara left Sister Mary at the arches with the other nuns who were clutching their rosary beads like weapons. Prayers were their protectors and their solutions. Whenever the abbey was faced with a problem, the nuns would take to a prayer vigil in the chapel. This scene, however, with nearly the entire inhabitants of the abbey congregating beneath the arches, rosaries in hands, reminded her of soldiers prepared to battle.
The enemy?
She slipped her shawl off her head. Her red corkscrew curls shot free like bursting flames as she tilted her head and peered to the far corner of the small cemetery.
At first glance she thought the size of the Highlander was the cause of the nuns’ unease. Further glance revealed the real reason for the sisters’ apprehension. A grave had been violated, an unthinkable act, but worse than that, it was a grave Sara was all too familiar with.
She threw her shoulders back and her head up, and with each step she took her heart thundered more loudly in her chest. This big brute of a Highlander was somehow connected with the poor woman who had been robbed of her newborn son by order of her callous father, the Earl of Balford. The story had circulated throughout the abbey upon the woman’s arrival. The earl had forbid her to wed her lover, a man beneath her station. She would deliver the babe and be done with it, never to see her son again. The injustice of the whole situation sickened Sara and made her take a decisive action she had thought someday would return to haunt her.
It looked like it had.
On closer approach, she saw that the large man, though obviously angry, had strong, handsome features and, thank the Lord, those were good teeth she spied through his snarl. His brown eyes were a shade darker than his long earthy brown hair and fumed with impatience. He looked about ready to reach out and grab her, and if he did, she had no doubt she’d get a taste of his strength. He was broad in chest and shoulders, with thick muscles in his legs and more than likely in his arms, though his long sleeves prevented confirmation. But she didn’t need it. What she could see of him told her enough.
Good features and good strength equaled good husband material.
As long as he wasn’t already married, she would have herself a husband, even if only for a brief time. God had been generous and answered her prayers.
Sara stopped beside the Abbess. “You wished to see me?”
“Where is my son?” The man shook the empty sack at Sara. “I have lost his mother. I will not loose my son.”
Pain mixed with his angry tone and tore at her heart. This man had been deeply wounded, and she didn’t wish to cause him any more pain, but she also needed him to help her. In return, she would give him what he so desperately wanted.
“You were to take care of the burial,” the Abbess said accusingly.
“If there had been a dead babe to bury, I would have seen to a proper burial. The babe, however, was very much alive.”
The Abbess snapped tall, as if affronted by her suggestion. “That is impossible. The babe died.”
“Not true. The babe—”
“Was dead and deserved a Christian burial,” the Abbess said. “Now what have you done with the child’s body?”
Sara rarely held her tongue, and when she knew she was right, she never held her tongue. “You had to have heard the whispers.”
“Pure nonsense—”
“The mother didn’t believe, so—”
“The mother was not of her right mind—”
“Enough!” Cullen’s shout brought a startled silence, and his dark eyes darted to Sara. “Explain.”
“Sara knows nothing,” the Abbess claimed.
Cullen’s head snapped around to pin the Abbess with a cold glare. “She will answer me, and you will not interfere.” He dismissed her presence by merely returning his attention to Sara and reiterating his query, again with a single word: “Explain.”
“I was not present at the birth, but I lingered like most of the others, waiting, hoping, to have a peek at the babe. The whispers started as the delivery drew closer. They were not easily dismissed. Who, and especially someone in the abbey, would suggest that the babe was doomed? Why?” Sara shrugged her shoulders. “It made no sense that the child should be in danger. A tiny babe, an innocent—”