So what she required was a small price to pay for his son’s safe return. He could give it to her easily, and just as easily leave the fiery redhead and join his half brother in America when his son was finally in his arms.
“Since you have yet to respond,” she said, “I assume you are considering my proposal.”
“A strange proposal and one I never expected,” Cullen admitted.
“I’ve learned that life is full of unexpected events.” She shrugged. “One must do the best one can with what she has in hand.”
“And I just happened to be handy.”
“Actually, you’re a godsend.”
She continued to startle him with her bluntness, but then, she was being honest with him, and he couldn’t fault that.
“You mentioned your father had chosen a husband for you. Why not just marry him?”
Sara pinched her nose and waved a hand in front of her. “He stunk!”
Cullen cracked a smile, the first in a very long time. “That badly?”
She rolled her eyes. “If you put him on the battlefield, he’d wipe out the enemy in one good whiff.”
Cullen laughed this time, a short burst that surprised him, but it couldn’t be helped. The picture she painted was just too humorous to ignore.
“And his teeth?” She shook her head. “I thanked the good Lord when I spied yours.”
He grinned, and she smiled.
“No rot and none broken. You’re a gem.”
“I meet with your approval?”
“It doesn’t truly matter if you do or not, though I am grateful for your good appearance. More important, you’re all that’s available.”
“So you’re stuck with me,” Cullen said, thinking he might just have the upper hand in this matter. Sara was quick to let him know that wasn’t the case.
“And you’re stuck with me, since I have what you want.”
“You’ll tell me—”
“After we’re wed,” she said.
This woman wasn’t only blunt, she was shrewd, and he wondered how much he could actually trust her, and if he could be sure she was speaking the truth.
He was direct with her. “How do I know you don’t tell me a bunch of lies just to get out of here?”
Sara shrugged. “You don’t.”
Her response startled him silent. She all but told him that he’d have to take a chance with her. He could be chasing a wild goose or he could be on the road to finding his son.
Sara sighed and shook her head.
Cullen watched her tight curls bounce around her face and spring from her head. The molten red color reminded him of the blazing sun as it settled in the sky at day’s end. Then her eyes caught his and a shiver raced through him. The soft blue-green color held a compassion that stirred his own, and he knew there and then that she spoke the truth.
“I’m not lying to you,” she said gently, and smiled. “I held your son in my arms. He was adorable, with a thatch of brown hair much like your own. I hushed his cries with a soft melody as I stole out into the night, sneaking him to safety. I felt so relieved when he was gone from the abbey. I knew no one would find him for they would all assume him dead and buried. I filled the sack with sand and wrapped it in the blue blanket. I dug the grave myself and fashioned the grave marker and purposely etched his name carelessly into the wood.”
Cullen almost reached out and hugged the woman. She had done for his son what he’d been unable to do. She had saved his life, and with a threat to her own, for if the Earl of Balford ever discovered what she’d done, he would have had her severely punished.
While he was forever grateful to her, he was also annoyed. He wished she would just tell him where Alexander was so he could be on his way. He ached to hold his son in his arms, know he was safe, and then see that they both joined his half brother in America, where no one could hurt either of them ever again.
“I appreciate what you did for my son,” he said.
“But…” Sara sighed. “You wished you didn’t have to marry me.”
Cullen answered her bluntly. “You’re right. I don’t want to wed you.”
“You have little choice if you want to see your son again.”
Her threat did not sit well with him, but he tempered his anger. He needed this woman whether he liked it or not. So, what if he wed her for a brief time? Their marriage meant nothing. He didn’t love her, nor she him. It was simply a bargain struck between two people, no more, no less.
He supposed it was the thought of marriage itself that disturbed him. He had always believed that he would wed Alaina. She would be his one and only wife; he wanted no other. Then he recalled how Alaina, with her last breath, thought only of their son. She knew she was dying, and all she could think about was Alexander’s safety. She had taken a chance to be with him and for them to find their son, and had paid dearly for it. She had paid with her life.