Sinful by Charlotte Featherstone

feeling, nor did she like feeling at the mercy of a man and her carnal appetites. Her mother had lost herself to a man, and Jane refused to follow that path.
    Standing alone on the sidewalk, she felt small and unsure, afraid. Part of her wanted to walk away, another part wanted to run to him and throw herself into his arms for safekeeping.
    Seconds of indecision went by in which Jane thought ahundred different things. It was only when he held out his hand to her, waiting patiently for her to come to him as the rainwater ran off the brim of his hat, that Jane had the absurd sense that somehow everything would be all right. He would make it right. She trusted him. Believed in him, even though she knew nothing about him. His name was Matthew, and he was a painter. If he was a lord or baron, he had not disclosed that information in his letters. To her he was simply Matthew. They were two people standing on the sidewalk, in the rain, waiting to discover one another. The only question left to be answered was, who Jane was. Was she an independent woman who yearned to discover pleasure in this man’s arms, or was she the shy woman, allowing her fears to rule her, and to rob her of this once-in-a-lifetime chance?
    She didn’t know. In that second, both women ruled her. Both sought to control her. There was only one thing that Jane knew for certain. If she entered that carriage with him her world would never look the same. It would be different. She would be different. She didn’t know if she could bear it, not knowing who she was. She was used to her world, yet she hungered for the smallest glimpse of the world that Matthew could show her.
    She only had to reach out to grasp it. To take his hand and allow herself to be taken to a place she had never thought she would discover.

7
    Matthew’s gaze burned into her, memorizing everything about Jane, standing alone on the sidewalk waiting for him. She wore a gray mantelet that was plain and unadorned. Her gloved fingers trembled nervously against the wooden handles of her purse, and he ached to soothe her fears, yet he could not think of moving as he catalogued the way the skirt of her gown fitted over her hips and thighs, the unadorned train trailing out behind her, allowing him to study the contours of her figure. Of its own volition, his gaze slowly caressed her belly and breasts, which were hidden from him beneath the mantelet, till it rested on the black veil that concealed her face.
    Damn it, his hands were shaking. He was nervous, strange for a man whose life was filled with nothing but clandestine meetings and couplings. But something told him that this meeting was going to be different. Jane was different.
    Ignoring the strange tremors, he extended his hand to her. “Come to me.”
    With a moment’s hesitation, she glanced behind her at thefilthy windows of the hospital, as if seeking permission. He half wondered if Inglebright was in there, watching from behind a curtain. But he forgot all about the doctor when she began to slowly walk to him. The few steps it took seemed to take forever. He hungered for her, for the feel of her in his arms. Swallowing hard, he reined in the mad urge to cross the remaining distance between them and crush her to him. But he couldn’t do such a thing. No, he had wanted this, to watch her coming to him, offering herself to him of her own free will.
    Their fingertips touched and he felt as though he’d been punched in the middle. As their fingers entwined, he felt something that was at once welcoming yet terrifying. Looking down at their locked hands, he realized it was a sense of…completion. Instinct told him to block the feeling. But then she spoke, her voice causing a warmth to spread throughout his body.
    “I almost didn’t come this afternoon.”
    Instinct be damned. His past and who he was need not intrude here, not with Jane. He was only Matthew with her, not the scandalous Earl of Wallingford, not the libertine society knew him to