Born In Sin

by Kinley MacGregor

  Her husband's kindness truly knew no bounds.

  Sin jerked as a tear fell onto his hand. Instinctively, he took the ring off her finger as remorse filled him.

  He was no good at this sort of thing. A warrior through and through, he knew nothing of women and their trinkets. Leave it to him to bungle such an important moment.

  "Forgive me, milady," he said hoarsely. "I thought you would like it. I'll get another—"

  She stopped his words by laying her fingers to his lips. "It is the most beautiful ring I have ever seen. I only cry because I am touched by the thought you must have put into it. Thank you."

  Warmth flooded him. She smiled a smile that made his legs weak and his groin tight. She brushed her gentle fingers against his jaw and dropped her hand to his, then slid the ring back onto her finger.

  Perhaps there was a chance for them after all…

  Nay, Sin. Don't even think that. Don't think it at all. 'Tis an illusion. A fleeting moment. Sooner or later the truth will out and she will hate you.

  His heart heavy, he listened as the priest joined them together.

  Once it was over, Henry led them from the room to the great hall, where a feast had been laid out. The hall was crowded with somber nobles who eyed Callie with pity and Sin with open hatred.

  Sin paused as he regarded the cold room. Granted, no one had ever cared much for his presence, but this went beyond the normal reserve and disdain the courtiers showed him.

  One of Henry's marshals came forward. An older man in his late years, he wore an impeccable gray surcoat and had the look of a harbinger.

  He bowed low before Henry and his guard. "Forgive me, Majesty, it seems Roger, the Earl of Warrington, was found murdered in his cell this morning." The man's suspicious gaze went to Sin. "His throat was cut."

  A mortified condemnation rippled through the crowd.

  Sin went numb at the news. He heard Simon's sharp intake of breath behind him and he felt Caledonia's hand drop in temperature.

  Convicted without a trial. How very typical.

  He stared blankly at the crowd, tempted to hunch over and run about like a crazed animal, dragging his knuckles. It was, after all, what they expected of him.

  "Were there any witnesses?" Henry asked.

  Again the marshal's gaze went to Sin. "None, Majesty. 'Tis as if a phantom had come and gone," he said, using the epitaph most often applied to Sin's crimes.

  Against his common sense, Sin glanced to Callie. A stern frown marred her face while she listened to Henry and the marshal speak.

  When she locked gazes with Sin, he waited for her to condemn him as the others had. "He is the man who tried to kill you last night?"

  "Indeed, madame."

  He felt her hand grow even colder. Worse, he felt it tremble.

  His stomach drew tight. He would expect the others to think the worst of him, but for some reason it bothered him greatly that she would.

  "We shall have to investigate this matter," Henry said. "For now, we have a wedding—"

  "Murderer!"

  The word rang out across the hall.

  Callie scanned the room's occupants until she saw a woman around two-score-and-five behind the massive crowd. The courtiers parted, giving the unknown woman a pathway from the door to Sin.

  Her face flushed and her dark brown eyes bright with tears, the noblewoman approached Sin with the quiet dignity of a queen. Her long, red dress was a stark contrast to the lady's black hair and dark eyes. There was something oddly familiar about this stranger.

  The woman stopped in front of Sin and gave him a glare of such loathing that Callie was amazed it didn't cause him to disintegrate right before her eyes.

  He didn't move at all as he regarded the woman with the same contemptuous sneer.

  "Damn you for killing my son. I wish you had died in the womb," the noblewoman said cruelly. "Better I should have killed myself than ever given birth to a monster such as you."

  Callie gasped as she realized this was Sin's mother and it was his similarity to her that she had noted as the lady crossed the hall…

  Which meant the man last night who had tried to kill him was his own brother. Callie's legs went weak with the knowledge.

  "Thank you, Mother," Sin said stoically. "As always, I will cherish your well wishes."

  Her black eyes lethal, his mother slapped Sin hard across the face, laying his cheek open.

  Still Sin didn't move. He didn't flinch. Not even when his mother rotated the ring around on her finger in a hateful gesture to let all know she had cut his cheek on purpose.

  "I demand justice," the woman cried, turning to Henry. "I want this bastard to pay for what he's done."

  "You would condemn your own son, Countess?"

  Tears ran down the lady's cheeks as she fought against her sobs. "I have no son. My only son died by the hands of a filthy killer." Raising her hands like claws, she rushed at Sin, who caught her by the forearms and held her back.

  "I want you dead for it!" she shrieked in his face. "You're despicable and vile. I wish to God I had killed you the very hour of your birth."

  His eyes blank, Sin said nothing as he kept her from clawing him.

  Henry ordered his guard to take the distraught woman from the room and to escort her to her chambers.

  Callie moved toward her husband and reached up to touch the bleeding cut on his cheek.

  Sin flinched from her as if she were a viper. "It will heal," he said.

  "Some wounds never heal, milord," Callie said as her heart ached for him. She couldn't imagine a mother being more cruel to her child than what she had just witnessed. She could only guess at what other atrocities the woman had visited upon him over the years.

  No wonder he had refused to speak of his mother last night when she'd asked him about her.

  Sin glanced to Henry, then he turned and stalked back down the hallway toward the chapel.

  Callie followed him, with Henry one step behind her.

  Once Sin reached the chapel, the priest took one look at Sin's angry visage, and hurried from the room.

  Ignoring him, Sin grabbed their wedding papers from where they'd been left drying on the altar and started for the fire in the hearth.

  Henry quickly stepped into his path. "What are you doing?"

  The rage on Sin's face was terrifying. "I want this marriage dissolved. Now."

  "Sin…" The king's voice was thick with warning.

  "Step aside, Henry."

  Callie held her breath. She'd never seen Sin like this. This was the man who really could kill someone in his sleep. He was cold. Icy. His eyes filled with turbulent agony.

  "You burn those papers and I will see you in chains."

  Sin gave him a hard, droll stare. "Think you that matters to me? If you're trying to scare me, you will have to do better than that."

  "Leave us," Henry said to everyone.

  His guards hesitated.

  "Now!" Henry roared.

  They left, but Callie went no farther than the closed door. She glanced at the guard, who looked away sheepishly, then she pressed her ear to the door to hear them.

  A heartbeat later, the guard did the same.

  "Give me those papers, Sin."

  Sin didn't move. He couldn't. Everyone in the great hall believed he had killed his own brother. Everyone, including Callie. He shouldn't care what Callie thought, and yet he did. He cared in a way that scared him. "Why did you do it?"

  Henry shrugged. "It had to be done. Roger was a liability neither of us could afford."

  How many times had he heard those words? How many times had he murdered for Henry? In truth, it was a miracle he hadn't been the one ordered to kill Roger.

  "I won't marry a woman who believes I could cut the throat of my own brother."

  "Whyever not? It's not as if you haven't done worse things in your life. Remember what the Saracens called you? Melek in Ölüm. The Angel of Death. It's what you've always been best at."

 
Sin winced at Henry's words. How stupid he had been to even hope he could start anew with Caledonia and live a quiet, normal life. He could never run from his past. From all the things he'd done to survive.

  He stared at the papers in his hands and saw his signature below Callie's. Her dainty, graceful handwriting was a stark contrast to his clumsy attempt.

  She was made of such goodness, such kindness. Everything about her was beautiful and he was nothing but evil. Ugly. A scarred soulless monster, incapable of anything save destruction.

  Melek in Ölüm. The title rang in his ears. Even now he could hear his masters laughing as they trained him. He had gone by many names back then. Had committed crimes he wished he could bury in the farthest reaches of his mind. He didn't deserve a second chance at life. And he damned sure didn't deserve a woman as decent and kind as Callie.

  Only a devil like Henry would seek to bind them together.

  Through the pain of his memories, he saw an image of Callie's warm smile. Heard the beauty of her laughter.

  She touched him on a level that made no sense whatsoever.

  "Now," Henry said, reaching his arm out. "Hand me those papers."

  Sin hesitated. But in the end, he found himself handing them over against his will.

  Henry breathed a sigh of relief as he tucked the papers inside the leather pouch on the altar. "I am your friend, Sin. You know that. If not for me, you would have died alone in Outremer without ever being among your own kind again."

  His own kind. Strange, Sin felt as alien here in England as he had ever felt with the Saracen tribes who had bought and sold him.

  Henry tucked the pouch under his arm. "Why do you care what the wench thinks of you anyway?"

  Sin cut a glare at Henry to let him know he had overstepped his bounds. "That lady happens to be my wife. I would caution you to show her due respect."

  Henry rolled his eyes. "Not another one. I do you a favor and get a snapping lion at my heels. Please don't tell me you're going to be like Thomas à Becket and turn on me, too."

  "You know me better than that."

  "I thought I knew him better than that, too, and yet look how wrong I was." Henry stared at him speculatively for the span of several heartbeats. "By the way, if you're still thinking of thwarting this marriage by trickery, think again. Come morning, I want proof of consummation."

  Sin arched a brow at that. "Don't tell me you wish to witness the event."

  "Hardly. I've already verified her virginal state. Come morning if there is no blood, then I shall have my physicians examine her again. There had best be no maidenhead."

  Sin gave him a dull stare. "You keep speaking as if I care whether or not I live or die. You have no real power over me, Henry, you know that. All that binds us together is my oath of loyalty to you."

  Henry narrowed his eyes. "You and I have been at odds since I first brought up this matter. I've no wish to fight with you. I just want this settled. I need a strong yet passionless arm in Scotland. You are perfect to infiltrate her people and maintain peace. Between you and the MacAllisters, it will secure my northern borders and leave me free to scrape Philip off my weary heels. If this marriage is not consummated, then she will be able to break the pact as soon as she returns home."

  "I know, Henry."

  "Then why are you making this so much more difficult than it need be?"

  Sin had no idea. It was just a feeling deep in his gut that if he consummated his marriage with Caledonia, then it would be eternal. And the last thing he wanted was to tie a woman like her to a man like him. It seemed foul and cruel.

  "Very well," Sin conceded. "Come morning, you shall have your proof of the deed."

  Henry smiled. "Then I shall leave you to your new bride."

  As Henry left, Sin stared longingly at the papers he carried under his arm. How he wished he could undo this day.

  In truth, he didn't care at all what the others thought of him. But it did matter to him what Callie thought. He didn't want to see her eyes dark with suspicion or, worse, hatred.

  Taking a deep breath, he headed for the door and prepared himself to face her condemnation.

  Callie's heart pounded as she pushed herself away from the door just moments before Henry threw it wide. She gave a quick curtsy to the king as he passed, then waited anxiously to see her husband.

  So, Sin was innocent of the murder.

  The news relieved her more than she ever would have thought possible. He was far from an innocent, but in this he'd had no part.

  When he walked through the door, she bestowed her brightest smile on him.

  Confusion darkened his midnight stare as he glanced about the crowd that watched him as if he were the lowest of life and unfit to share the earth with them. But she didn't care what they thought. Let them be fools if they must.

  Her heart lurched at the sight of the drying blood on Sin's cheek. The wound was already purple and jagged, and it must pain him. It was an ugly blemish on a man so handsome.

  She reached her hand up to touch him. "Let me—"

  He shrugged off her touch and strode from the hall.

  Callie swallowed the lump in her throat at his curtness. What would have made him behave that way?

  Determined to find out, she went after him.

  She caught up with her husband down the hallway, where servants bustled to get as far away from him as they could. "Where are you going?"

  Sin paused at the melodic voice behind him. She had followed?

  He turned about to find her directly behind him, with her skirts held in her hands so that she could match his much longer stride. Her trim ankles were bare to his view and the sight of them fired his blood. Not even the plaid she wore, which reminded him of a heritage he despised, could detract from the way he wanted to claim this lady.

  His wife.

  The truth tore through him.

  "I want to be alone," he said more sternly than he intended.

  "Well, how fine is that?" Her voice carried the full weight of her sarcastic displeasure. "Here it is our wedding day and you wish to spend it alone. Fine, then, call me shoe leather and have done with it."

  He frowned at her words. "I beg your pardon? Call you what?"

  "Shoe leather." She gestured toward his feet. "You know, the inconsequential matter that you tread upon without thought. That is all I am to you, isn't it?"

  He couldn't have been more stunned had she spat in his face. How could she ever think that, when to him she was the very essence of heaven itself? He couldn't imagine a woman more noble or precious, even if she did have an insufferable habit or two. "I have yet to treat you as if you were inconsequential."

  "Yet, you say. Implying that the time will surely come when you will."

  "I didn't say that, either."

  "Didn't you?"

  "Nay."

  She looked up at him with a light smile at the corner of her lips and an impish gleam in her bright green eyes. "So then, I do have value to you."

  More than she would ever know. "This was all a game?"

  She shook her head. "Not a game. I merely wanted you to talk to me." She took a step forward and touched his arm.

  Sin stared at the delicate hand on his biceps and it took all his strength not to crush her to him and claim her lips with his. Not to lift her in his arms and run with her to their room, where he could lose himself in the sweet softness of her body.

  "I know you have been alone much of your life," she said gently. "But we are married now. No matter how this came about, I fully intend to abide by my vows. I would be a wife to you, Sin, if you will let me."

  Therein lay the problem. He didn't know if he could. Every time he had ever reached out to someone, he had been hurt. Over the years, he'd learned to pull inward, to give no one that kind of power over him.

  He had shut off his heart, his emotions, and learned to just be.

  It was the only way to have peace in his life.

  Now she wanted to change all that. He h
ad hungered for love and acceptance for so long that he didn't dare reopen himself to any tenderness now. It would destroy him.

  "I need to be alone for a while," he said, gentling his voice. "Please."

  She withdrew her hand. "I will be waiting for you when you are ready."

  That was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to him. Touched to a level so deep it defied explanation, he turned and made his way slowly toward the stables.

  "I don't know if you'll ever reach him, milady."

  Gasping in alarm, Callie turned in the hallway to see Simon drawing near from behind her. "You were eavesdropping?"

  "Only a little."

  She smiled at his honesty. "Where is Jamie?"

  "Aelfa took him to your room. She and I will watch over him tonight for the two of you."

  "Thank you."

  He nodded.

  As he started to leave, she stopped him. "Simon, is there anything you can tell me to help me with Sin?"

  "He is a hard man, but a fair one. No one, including me, really knows your husband, milady. Sin just is. He asks for nothing and relies solely on himself. If there is a way of reaching him, I do not know it. All I know is that it won't be easy. But if you're willing to try, then I am willing to help."

  "You're a good man, Simon."

  He laughed aloud at that. "Beautiful women keep saying that to me, and yet they all end up married to another. Perhaps I should try being bad, and maybe then I could go home with the fair demoiselle."

  Callie smiled at him. "I doubt you could ever be bad."

  A young maid approached them timidly from up ahead. Callie greeted her.

  "Beg pardon, milady," the girl said nervously as she curtsied before them. "My lady bade me give this to you. 'Tis a wedding gift."

  Callie took the small box from the girl's shaking hands. "From whom?"

  "The Countess of Rutherington."

  "Sin's mother," Simon clarified.

  Callie frowned. Why would she be sending a gift? It made no sense, given her actions toward Sin.

  Curious, Callie opened the box and saw a small bottle.

  "What the devil is that?" Simon asked.