But could he forgive himself?
“I’m ready.”
Cullen turned, startled, not having heard Sara’s approach. He stared at her. She was so very tall for a woman and carried her height with pride. There wasn’t a slouch to her slim shoulders or her rigid stance. Her crazy hair, which refused taming, blazed bright red against the sharp afternoon sun.
And what was it about her eyes that he found so intriguing?
“Are you ready?”
She jolted him out of his musings and he nodded. “Have we far to go? Will we need horses?”
“You walked here?”
“I stabled my horse at a nearby farm.”
“A horse would get us there in a week’s time,” she said.
“Good. I wish to be reunited with my son as soon as possible.”
“You will see him. You have my word on it, just as your son has my word that I will see him kept safe.”
Cullen halted just as he was about to fling the rolled bedding over his shoulder. Sara certainly was a curiosity, giving her word to a newborn babe who could understand nothing. “Tell me about my son.”
Cullen began walking, Sara falling in step beside him “Alexander was astute for a newborn,” she said as they walked through the gates of the abbey, the chapel spire shrouded by a hovering cloud while the sun shined down on their departure.
“How so?”
“He squirmed and fussed when certain people held him. It was as if he knew who he could trust and who he couldn’t.”
“He didn’t fuss when you held him?”
Sara smiled. “Not at all. He settled in my arms as if he knew me, but then, I would always tell him he was safe with me. That he wasn’t to worry. The night I crept out of the abbey with him, he slept peacefully tucked in my arms. He didn’t make a sound, but I had warned him that he needed to remain silent.”
Cullen grinned. “And he had heard and listened.”
“Of course,” Sara said, as if he were daft to believe anything else. “I told you, he’s very astute.”
The couple soon settled into an easy chatter and steady pace, leaving the abbey in the distance and the eyes that watched them disappear out of sight.
The Abbess finished the note posthaste and delivered it to the young lad who had been summoned from a nearby village. She gave him specific instructions.
“You are to take this to the Earl of Balford. It is to go from your hands into his, no one else but him. Do you understand?”
The young lad sniffled and nodded. “Aye, the Earl of Balford,” he confirmed, snatched the note from her hand and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his dirty jacket.
“It is imperative that you do precisely as I’ve instructed. Let nothing stop you from getting the note into the Earl of Balford’s hands.”
He nodded again.
“Good, then be off with you.” The Abbess dismissed him with a wave and collapsed to the hard wooden chair in her quarters. The Earl of Balford was the abbey’s largest contributor. Without his generous donations, the abbey would not survive. The earl had made arrangements for his daughter to birth her child at the abbey and for the child to…
The Abbess shut her eyes and shook her head. What was she to have done? Deny the earl his request? No, it hadn’t been a request. It had been an edict. The babe was to have been deceased by the time he reached Sara. No one was to know of the plan, but she was unable to stop tongues from running loose, and had been relieved to learn the babe had been buried and the whole ordeal was finally done.
She opened her eyes and sighed. It wasn’t done. It had just begun. There was no telling what the Earl of Balford would do once he discovered the babe lived and that his father had come to claim him. She only knew it was her duty to protect the abbey at all costs, and if that placed others in danger, so be it.
Cullen Longton and his new wife Sara were on their own—and God help them.
Chapter 5
It felt good to ride a horse again. Sara loved to ride, to walk the woods and hills, to fish the streams and hunt the forest, and she could cook whatever she caught, not to mention being quite skillful with a needle and thread. She was quite proficient in many things. Growing up with limited friends, she had spent much time on her own. With curiosity that harbored on the obsessive, she was soon learning all she could about anything she could.
But though she knew a whole lot about a whole lot, it hadn’t helped her find a husband. What man wanted a woman more skillful than himself at riding and hunting? Not to mention that her intelligence far surpassed most men in her clan and allowed her no patience for moronic viewpoints.
Her sister Teresa, three years older and, thank the Lord, her champion, insisted she would meet her match one day, someone who would recognize her qualities and respect her for her own worth. Sara didn’t believe it possible. It would take a man of pure courage or pure foolishness to fall in love with her.