Page 92 of My Hero
“You’d send three warriors against an unarmed priest?” he scoffed. Then he turned toward the people, the servants and nobles who had flourished under Cynthia’s care. “Do you believe these charges?” he asked. “Do you believe that this woman…” He gestured to her, and the hopelessness in her eyes made his voice crack. “This woman who’s stitched your wounds and set your bones, this woman who’s salved your cuts and birthed your babes, do you believe she could possibly be a witch?”
For a long moment, a quiet guilt settled over the castle folk. Surely they wouldn’t betray Cynthia. Surely they owed her more than that.
Then the Abbot broke the silence with cool confidence. “Does anyone here know of the existence of Lady Cynthia’s lover?”
The crowd looked uncertainly about. Garth scowled. What did that have to do with…
“Nay? Then how is it,” the Abbot mused, “that she carries a babe in her belly?”
The room rustled. Garth fired a glance at Cynthia, but her eyes were trained on the floor.
“Who,” the Abbot continued, “but the mistress of the devil could carry a babe in her belly without the benefit of a lover?”
A babe? Garth scarcely heard the mutters of surprise around him. A babe?Hisbabe. Joy swelled his heart for one brief moment before it faded like a falling star against a black night.
He locked eyes with Cynthia. Worry etched her features. But not for herself. For him. Because she knew what he would do. What hemustdo.
He stretched himself to his full height. His whole being trembled with the enormity of what he was about to say. It would ruin him. It would stain his family name. Worst of all, it would exile him from the church that had given him some small measure of solace and peace.
And yet, hadn’t he known it would come to this? From the first time he and Cynthia made love, the possibility had been there. With each passing week, that possibility turned into a probability. He couldn’t lie and say he’d never considered the consequences. Perhaps he’d never let those consequences surface, but in his heart of hearts, he knew very well what he was doing…and that this day would ultimately come.
In a strange way, it gave him a sense of relief. The decision was made for him now. His cassock felt like an old snakeskin, ready to be shed.
He raised a hand for silence from the castle folk. “I declare before all assembled here,” he announced, “that I, Garth de Ware, am the father of Lady Cynthia’s child.”
Elspeth bit back a sob, and Roger could not have looked prouder were Garth his own son. But Garth was certain they didn’t believe him. They likely assumed he sacrificed himself for Cynthia’s sake. For one triumphant moment, the Abbot looked very anxious indeed.
Then Cynthia spoke. “Nay.”
Garth looked at her in surprise. Cynthia was shaking her head, her face as cold and unyielding as stone.
“Nay. He is not the father.”
Garth frowned. What in the name of God…?
“He is not the father of my babe.”
His heart twisted. How could she utter those words? How could she betray him? Of course the babe was his. She’d lain with no other. He knew that,knewit…knew it as well as he knew the color of her…
Eyes. Her eyes shone softly toward him, two translucent gems of blue, in silent entreaty. Then he realized the truth. She was denying him, because she loved him. She knew he’d be ostracized from the church if he admitted to siring a bastard. She was protecting him.
The idea that she’d sacrifice so much for him left a choking lump in his chest.
In all his searching, all the hours spent in prayer, all the days copying the holy Scripture, all the weeks and months and years of enduring the poverty of the flesh to aspire to heaven, he’d never even come close.
Thiswas heaven.
Not some black-haired wench twisting and writhing under his hips. Not the sweet plainsong of holy men echoing through a monastery. Not even carefree summer days spent frolicking in grassy meadows. Heaven was the love of the most precious woman on earth.
“Whether the babe is mine or not,” he said with more conviction than he’d ever put into a sermon, “I lay claim to it. And to the woman you so unjustly condemn.”
The crowd’s murmurs rose to a dull roar.
The Abbot licked his thin lips, his beady eyes darting about, and then raised both arms. “Silence! Silence!”
Garth furrowed his brow. “And if there is no other way…” He clasped the wooden cross about his neck, jerking it downward to break the chain, and let it drop to the ground. “I renounce my priestly vows to do so.”
The bystanders gasped as a single being, and it took far longer this time to hush their amazed chatter.
