A Taste of Sin Read Free

realized who was pushing them aside, for Sinjun heard someone whisper his name. Immediately a path was cleared for him, allowing him into the inner circle. Then he was standing before her, staring into the perfect oval of her flawless features.
    Her eyes were green, he noted, as green as sparkling emeralds. Her lips were full and red, her lashes long, dark wings that curled upward at the edges. Her glowing, sun-kissed complexion surprised him. Ladies of the ton religiously avoided the sun. Yet everything about the mystery woman was exquisite.
    She wore a green gauze gown that, though not dampened, revealed every curve of her lush figure. Sinjun seriously doubted she wore even light stays beneath her chemise. Though her décolletage was not severe, it revealed enough of her magnificent breasts to make staring worthwhile. And he’d wager he wasn’t the only one who thought so. Sinjun felt himself harden and was shocked to the core. Bloody hell! He wanted her and he didn’t even know her!
    “I believe this is my dance,” Sinjun said in a sensual drawl that would normally send most women into a veritable swoon.
    Slowly she raised her eyes to his, and Sinjun was struck by the strangest feeling of déjà vu. He searched his memory and came up blank.
    “Do I know you, my lord?” Flora said in a slightly husky voice that teased Sinjun’s senses and made him aware of other more prominent places on his body.
    “No, my lady, but ‘tis easily remedied,” Sinjun said. “I am St.John Thornton, Lord Derby. My friends call me Sinjun.” Sinjun thought he saw something stir in the clear depths of her eyes, but it was too quickly gone for him to be sure.
    “His friends call him Lord Sin,” someone nearby whispered in an aside loud enough for the lady to hear.
    Flora’s elegant brows inched upward. “Lord Sin?”
    “Pay them no heed, my lady. You may call me Sinjun. And you are—”
    “Lady Flora Randall,” she said, offering her hand.
    Sinjun clasped her small, warm hand and placed a kiss on her knuckles. Then, giving her a bewitching smile, he turned her hand, drew her glove back, and kissed her wrist. He felt a shudder go through her and drew her forward. “Ah, a quadrille is just beginning. Shall we join in?”
    Before she had a chance to protest, he led her out on the dance floor.
    “So you are the Lord Sin I’ve heard so much about,” Lady Randall said as the opening strains of music filled the room.
    “My friends exaggerate,” Sinjun demurred. “Pay them no heed, my lady. Is this your first time in town?”
    “Aye, and I admit it’s far different from what I’m accustomed to.”
    The dance steps separated them, and when they rejoined, Sinjun asked, “Is that an accent I detect, my lady?”
    “Just a country accent, my lord,” she murmured.
    Christy Flora Macdonald, laird of the Macdonald clan since the recent death of her grandfather, stared at the man she hadn’t seen since their marriage fifteen years ago and nearly choked on her anger. Truth to tell, she wanted Lord Derby no more than he wanted her. But circumstances had changed. Her English husband had raised rents and taxes to unconscionable levels, and her clansmen, especially the Camerons, had insisted that she seek an annulment in the English courts and wed Calum Cameron.
    Christy liked Englishmen no better than her clansmen did, and she resented the fact that after the Battle of Culloden disaster her family’s holdings had been confiscated, and she had been forced to marry a hated Englishman. But she had no desire to marry Calum Cameron. Nor did she have any intention of obtaining an annulment. She had her own reason and a private agenda, and she was determined to succeed.
    Christy liked her life the way it was. Having an absentee husband allowed her to do as she pleased without restrictions. She didn’t want a husband making decisions for her. Everything had been perfect until Calum and his kinsmen had decided the time had come to make