Born in Sin Read Free

had no doubt Henry would do just that. He also knew who would be asked to fulfill that decree. “Henry, you know how I feel about a wife.”
    “Aye, I do. But in all honesty, I truly wish to see you wed. I have valued your service, but it has always concerned me that you have nothing in life you value. I have given you lands, wealth and titles, and you spurn them as if they’re poison. All the years I have known you, you have lived with one foot already in the grave.”
    “And you think a wife would bring me back over the threshold?”
    “Aye.”
    Sin snorted. “Then I shall remind you of that the next time you complain of Eleanor.”
    Henry laughed so hard he choked. “Were you any other man, you would be dead for such audacity.”
    “And I would say the same of you.”
    At least it succeeded in checking Henry’s mirth.
    Henry paced a small path in front of Sin and fell quiet. By his face, Sin could tell he was thinking of something long ago.
    When the king spoke, his voice was thick with nostalgia. “I remember well the night you held that dagger to my throat. Do you remember what you said?”
    “Aye, I offered you my loyalty if you would grant me my freedom.”
    “Yea, you did. And I need your loyalty now. Philippe is on my heels trying to wrench Normandy and Aquitaine from my hands, my sons are yapping for their own slices of power, and now this Highland clan attacks the few Englishmen I have guarding my northern borders. I cannot continue to be attacked from all sides. Even a raging bull can be brought low by a pack of hungry dogs. And I am tired of it. I need peace before they kill me. Will you help me?”
    Inwardly, Sin cringed as he heard the four words he had never been able to deny. Damn his blackened soul for it. It was the one piece of his conscience that hadn’t been destroyed, and Henry knew it.
    Sin growled low in his throat. Surely there had to be a means to escape this wretched event. And surely he…
    Sin almost smiled as the thought occurred to him.
    ’Twas perfect, and as insidious as he himself was.
    “Aye, I’ll marry the wench, but only if you can find a priest who will sanction it.”
    Henry’s face blanched.
    Sin smiled evilly. In the last nine years, he had been excommunicated five times. The most recent one carried a papal ban so severe that it should have him roasting out eternity right by the devil’s side.
    The pope himself referred to Sin as Satan’s Most Favored Spawn.
    Henry would never find a priest who would dare allow Sin to take part in a sacrament.
    “You think you have me, don’t you?” Henry asked.
    “I think nothing of the sort, Henry. As you said, I know the Scots and know they would accept nothing less than a sanctified marriage. I have merely given you the conditions of our union.”
    “Very well, then. I accept your terms and intend to hold you to them.”

Chapter 2
    “A re we going to escape this time, Callie?”
    Caledonia of the Clan MacNeely pulled her baby brother to a stop in the narrow corridor where they were making their way out of King Henry’s castle.
    She knelt beside his little body. “If you’ll be keeping your words to yourself we just might,” she whispered.
    Callie smiled to soften her harsh words, and straightened the brown Phrygian cap on his small head. His face still held the baby-fat cheeks and bright, trusting blue eyes of the toddler he had been not all that long ago. “Now, remember, we’re English servants, which means if you open your mouth, they’ll know we’re Highlanders for sure.”
    He nodded.
    Callie tucked Jamie’s orangish red curls back under his cap. His hair was the same shade as her own. But that was all they shared, for Callie looked like her dearly departed mother and Jamie favored his own mother, Morna.
    He looked at her now with blue eyes steeled by determination, and with a sagacity no lad of his tender age should possess. At six years, the boy had seen more than his fair share of tragedy. God willing, he