Sin and Surrender Read Online Free PDF

surprised by how well the garments fit him, though he hadn’t been measured by a tailor. There were doublets and tunics of vivid colors, patterned and multicolored hose to match, capes and belted coats trimmed in fur. Several hats were adorned with large feathers, and chains glittered with pendants.
    Paul practiced his slouch, and found himself sighing.
    “Vain?” Michael asked from behind him.
    Paul frowned. “Put yourself in my place, forced to be weak and soft, an easy target.”
    Michael only shrugged, as if he didn’t want to offer sympathy. He’d been assigned to act as Paul’s manservant, and his faintly disapproving air would most likely grow tiresome.
    Paul buckled on his sword, still angry at playing a part that left him so vulnerable to attack.
    They met up with the rest of the party in the front hall below. Paul distracted himself by eyeing Juliana, and she did the same to him.
    Considering he’d just fought the woman several hours before, he was amazed at the transformation. Would he ever become used to this? It was like looking at a gaily wrapped present every day—one he wasn’t permitted to unwrap.
    She was dressed in royal blue, trimmed in fur, with a jeweled girdle hung low about her hips. Her neckline was square, with the curves of her breasts visible beneath a scrap of sheer lace that might be a sensual undergarment. Daring, sexual, and marking her as less than a wife, and more than a common prostitute.
    “Do I meet with your approval?” Juliana asked dryly.
    “You’ll have to consult me every day,” he answered smoothly.
    After hiding their finery beneath cloaks, they all went outside to the waiting horses. Paul considered the open gate, where anyone could see them, and decided to launch into his role. When he took Juliana’s gloved hand in his, she allowed him to bring it to his lips.
    “Mistress Juliana, permit me to help you mount.”
    “I am your concubine, not your wife,” she said with exasperation.
    “But some might think a concubine treated better than a wife.”
    “Then that is a sad, cynical state of mind.”
    “Regardless, I am a man who treats well what’s mine. And you are mine, for the near future.”
    He could tell she gritted her teeth, but she nodded her acquiescence. “How do you wish to—”
    He picked her up by the waist, and she gripped his forearms. Though tall enough to be a man, she felt surprisingly light. She was able to put a foot in the stirrup, then gracefully slide her other leg across the saddle. When he released her, she settled her voluminous skirts so that only the toes of her boots showed. She’d adopted masculine footwear, but again, a concubine could do as she wished.
    “No sidesaddle?” he asked, looking up at her. “I do not wish to have someone leading me. If we’re chased, I need to be able to control my own horse.”
    Before Paul could respond, Timothy called abruptly, “Let us be off.”
    Both Paul and Juliana pulled their hoods up, and the entire party set out through the rear entrance into the alley, meandering slowly through crooked streets while the horses picked their way through refuse. It wasn’t until they neared the London Bridge that they cast offtheir cloaks in the sun and rode almost royally through the crowds, drawing gawking attention from fishwives with their loaded panniers to bakers holding pies over their heads. They followed a flock of geese being driven up the narrow path of the bridge, between the merchant shops and homes built on its two-hundred-year-old span.
    It was almost a parade, Paul thought, keeping a faint, noble smile about his mouth.
    And then there was Juliana, the queen of the parade. She dazzled every man on the street, her expression serene and confident, her black hair hanging in long, gentle curls about her body. She looked like a woman of leisure, a woman of sin.
    She saw him staring, and the smile she gave him was full of raw intimacy that was as physical as a punch to the gut. Her knowing