Born in Sin by Kinley MacGregor Read Free Book Online

he could follow the woman’s path by the screams and shouts of the mob. He spurred his horse forward. He would have to catch her before the raging mob tore her apart.
     
    Callie trembled as she ran pell-mell through the streets. Her sides ached as she struggled to breathe.
    “I can’t keep up,” Jamie wailed.
    “You have to, sweeting. If we stop now, they’ll have us for sure.”
    She didn’t dare tell him that the mob would most likely tear them apart in an effort to claim the twenty silver marks. ’Twas a fortune the knight had offered.
    Jamie stumbled.
    Callie turned around to help him up, but it was too late. The frenzied mob surrounded them instantly.
    “I have them, milord!” a grimy man shouted as he grabbed her arm.
    “Nay, ye don’t, ye ugly bugger, I have her.”
    The cry went up from every direction as a thousand hands pulled at her, ripped her clothes and hair. Callie cried out in pain, but no one seemed to care.
    “Jamie!”
    She could neither see nor hear her brother through the crowd.
    Then, out of nowhere, a huge black stallion appeared. The crowd scattered as the horse reared, flashing hooves and driving them away from her.
    Her heart pounding, Callie looked up to see Lord Sin.
    He brought his horse under control with the ease ofa seasoned warrior. And when he extended his hand to her, she didn’t hesitate to accept it.
    He pulled her up to sit before him and she quickly looked to see Jamie being rescued by an auburn-haired knight on a light gray horse. Breathing in relief, she crossed herself and whispered a quick thank-you to the Lord and His saints.
    But her relief didn’t last long, as she became acutely aware of the man holding her. The strength of him surrounded her, making her strangely hot. English though he might be, there was something about Lord Sin that she found greatly appealing. Something about him that made her body burn with a lustful throb that stunned her.
    At a score-and-six in age, Callie was a far cry from an uninformed maid who knew nothing of the relationships between men and women. Even though she had never been touched by a man, her married friends had seen her well schooled in the mechanics of wifely duties. She’d always found the idea of what they described a bit messy and undignified. At least until she had seen Lord Sin’s bare chest.
    In that moment, her thoughts had taken a sharp turnaround.
    For some reason, the thought of being so intimate with him seemed anything but disgusting or crude. Indeed, she’d been much occupied with the sudden question of how his lips would taste. Of how his large, tanned hands would feel on her body while she ran her fingers through his silken hair.
    “It appears, milady, that you are ever out of the clutches of Scylla and into the hands of Charybdis.”
    She blinked at his deep baritone as she dragged herthoughts away from their course and focused them on what was happening to her. “My uncle claims ’tis a special talent I possess.”
    Lord Sin smiled at that, causing a strange weakness to sweep through her. He was simply breathtaking when he smiled.
    He wheeled his horse about and started for the castle.
    “I don’t suppose I could bribe you into setting us free?” she asked hopefully.
    “You know better.”
    Her throat tightened as she blinked back tears at the harsh insistence in his voice. “All I want is to go home. Can you not understand that?”
    A strange emotion darkened his eyes as if her words had pricked at some sad memory. “Aye, milady,” he said quietly. “I can well understand your feelings.”
    “Then why can’t you let me go?”
    “Because Henry needs you here to see to it that your people leave his alone.”
    “You mean leave your people alone.”
    His gaze turned dull at that. “I have no people,” he said solemnly.
    She paused, and her gaze dipped to his chest, where English knights wore their family or lord’s arms. His was bare and suddenly she understood why. “If you don’t owe your