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  The footman was reluctant, yet he relented when he realized that she would only leave her stance by force, thereby creating a scene. She realized how horrible she must appear with her long hair matted in tangles and her face ravaged by too many tears. Her embarrassment was acute, as finely dressed patrons of the hotel whisked up the entryway’s red carpet, trying not to let their dignified gazes settle on her. She stood bravely, shivering on her bare feet, yet it was too much when one gentleman arriving alone did not avert his gaze distastefully, but made a point to leer at her. That blatant lecherous speculation sent her fleeing to the side of the ponderous building, to hold her breath against the possibility of the gentleman following her. He did not, and she collapsed against the side of the building, shaking. Her bare feet were so cold and she was still so afraid.

  “Mademoiselle Becou!” Orelan gasped at the sound of her name, while she cowered against the wall. “Orelan, it is Radford. Lord Sutherlin.”

  Radford caught Mademoiselle Orelan Becou, before she slumped to the ground. He realized immediately the lady had fallen into a faint as he lifted her up into his arms. A light from the street caught the features of her face as he looked downward. He grimaced. Orelan was beautiful, but there were obvious signs of trauma on her face. Red swollen eyes, nose, bruised lips, and dirt smudges. It had not escaped his notice that Mademoiselle Orelan could not be wearing anything beneath the woolen cloak around her. The situation was grave, and he debated whether to take her inside the hotel to see to her health and comfort more quickly.

  “I am truly sorry, Mademoiselle,” he murmured in a gruff voice. Orelan’s comfort would have to wait for the more important issue of safety, and that meant that he must immediately take her to the ship. It was one of his sailing ships called Trident. As a Duke, few people realized his common pursuits, such as the shipping company that he owned, and also the distillery, three woolen factories, and the one pub. There was a certain thrill to making one’s own money, versus the fortune of old money he had inherited since becoming a Duke.

  The Trident was where Wyndham would come to upon his escape. He just wished that he knew what was happening. The unexpected arrival of Orelan, showing up in such a manner did not bode well. Yet, Brynmore and Saxonhurst were stationed outside the gates of Valcourt, as close as they could be, to help in any way they could. Still, it would take Wyndham’s ingenuity to get outside the gate. What worried him immensely though was what Wyndham might have given up, such as his freedom, for Orelan’s release.

  Yet, Radford knew that Drummond and Harrison were working behind the diplomatic scenes, such as it was. And the Archangels, in a group, all for one, were a formidable group. If Wyndham was a prisoner in Valcourt now, they would find a way to affect his escape, there was no doubt on that matter. Radford heard the clatter of the carriage he’d ordered, just before he had come downstairs to find Orelan. He turned to watch the conveyance turn up the alleyway he stood in. He’d not known Orelan would be waiting in the alleyway. He’d just wanted stealth when leaving the Royal Hotel with his precious cargo. A small amount of providence was on his side tonight though.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wyndham gripped the polished side-rails on the bow of Radford’s sleek shipping vessel, Trident. His gaze was unseeing of the gentle blue-black sea illuminated by a full moon at midnight. Even though his face turned outward to the gradual midnight swells of the sea, his thoughts and sight were inward. The Trident sailed cleanly through the water, leaving behind a sordid time, and Wyndham had an intense urge to just dive into the cold clean sea. Perhaps, cleanse his soul with the sharp bite of the salt water.

  Orelan was ensconced in the captain’s cabin below where he stood. She was safe and she had been told that he was safely aboard the ship. That had been several hours ago and now the ship was well out to sea. Yet still, he stood on the bow dressed in a borrowed shirt and pair of pants with nothing but the sea to cleanse him. At first, he’d not gone to see Orelan because of the amenities. A maid for her comfort had been neatly employed for the journey, in Radford’s ever-ready fashion, and women’s machinations took time. To be bathed, pampered, clothed, and to have her injuries attended to. Rough scraped palms and knees, Radford had said.

  Wyndham’s grip tightened to nearly painful proportions around the railing. Anything else, he wondered? What had been done was enough, yet he feared the unknown. After Orelan had left him in the sole company of the guards. He was not a coward. That was not why he stood at bay for so long. No, it was too delicate Too important. He had to approach Orelan properly. He had to begin now as he intended to go on. In his callous youth, he would have rushed in, unthinking. He would have frightened a young woman with his brashness. Stolen a kiss from an innocent with his harsher more demanding lust.

  “This is for a lifetime,” he murmured, looking out to the black wave swept sea. Orelan was everything, and all he could ever dream of wanting. Yet, they had been through so much. Their emotions, her emotions, must remain so delicate. He did not want to muddle it, so he made himself stop and think. They would survive. They would come through as one no matter what had happened.

  Perhaps, he should... “Court her,” he murmured. It was silly and improbable after everything they had been through. “It could work,” he uttered, turning his gaze up to the moon. It was after all, and had been for years, his deepest wish.

  “Do you intend to stand there barefooted, like the love-besotted fool that you obviously are? Or go to her, old man.”

  Wyndham turned toward Radford’s snide aristocratic tone with a slight smile lifting his firm lips. “You were voted the emissary then?” Wyndham asked dryly.

  “Of course,” Radford replied, hitching his lean hip against the railing, as he continued, “Brynmore and Saxonhurst could never attempt my finesse.”

  Wyndham nearly laughed and he realized how good it was to finally be once again with Radford’s noble cockiness, Brynmore’s roguish cheekiness, and Saxon’s abiding loyalty. His gaze caught Saxon and Brynmore rounding the mast as they each speculatively eyed him. He merely nodded and they both came forward.

  “What happened?” Wyndham asked, once they were all gathered at the railing. He knew Alexei’s arrest was certainly not mere providence. He also thought he had an inkling of who to thank for his, in the nick of the time, rescue. Radford smugly gazed at him with his dark head tilted to one side. Brynmore winked imprudently and Saxon actually blushed. “Not you three then,” Wyndham muttered in amazement. “Surely, Drummond or Ravenscar?”

  All three of them shook their heads gazing at him, until he had to believe none of the Archangels crafted Alexei’s opportune arrest. Then Radford quipped. “Oh by the aside, Wyndham, the Captain of this ship marries . . .”

  Wyndham dropped his head and suddenly his three friends and companions were there beside him, all in motion for a combined male hugging and back patting. “Thank you,” Wyndham whispered. He knew well that the three of them understood his feelings. Never again would he reject any help offered, nor would he allow any of them to refuse his help. Together they were the Archangels and apart they were obscurity.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Without turning around, Orelan dismissed the maid with a grateful murmur. She could nearly pretend to be normal again, she thought, smoothing down the white gossamer fiber of the vaporous nightgown she wore. She was standing at the portal looking out to the midnight sea, such a deep purply black color that it reminded her of Wyndham’s eyes. She knew Wyndham was safe, she’d been told. What she did not know, was what price he might have paid in those last fateful hours with Alexei. Perhaps, that was why he did not come to her, she thought with remorse? Maybe they were both branded now beyond repair?

  “When I gaze upon you, Orelan, all that I see are the golden lights of love. All that I feel is passion and longing so deeply coiled into my soul that it brings me to my knees in reverence.” Orelan gasped at Wyndham’s deep tenor voice behind her, while his words took hopeful flight in her heart. “From
this moment forward all that I will ever ask, of God or of man, is that I may love you.”

  Orelan turned with a soft urgent cry upon her lips. “Wyndham.” She saw him kneeling on the polished wooden flooring, gazing up at her, and her bare feet took flight with her night gown billowing around her like a white cloud. She met him on her knees as her fingers found the chiseled lines of his face. “I love you,” she gasped.

  Wyndham’s fingers clasped the sides of her face as his thumb traced her parted lips and his irises shone like sapphire embers. They gazed at each other with impassioned questions and love, as though they were seeing each other fully for the first time in their lives.

  “Baby love,” Wyndham whispered with his voice husky and filled with tremendous emotion as his forehead dropped and their temples kissed once, then laying still against each other. Their breathlessness mingled together warm and sweet.

  Orelan sighed, a deep longing sound of love and joy, while her fingers touched Wyndham’s silky hair, the sides of his face, down his strong neck and his very powerful shoulders. She quested with an exploration of touch, feeling through her fingertips the sureness of his strength and wholeness.

  “Did they . . .” Wyndham’s voice caught on a deep bass tone.

  “No, Wyndham,” she whispered urgently. “I was not touched, my golden puma.”

  The sound that erupted from Wyndham’s chest was a fierce growling of sharp relief as he grasped her into his strong and forceful embrace, cradling her yielding body against his steely frame. His masculinity surrounded her, enveloping her in warmth, safety, passion, and love, and she cried out at the power and surety of it. She quivered against him as he soothed her with slow caressing hands and the sheer force of his presence.

  “Did, Alexei . . .” she panted, trembling. “My golden puma, did you?” she gasped.

  “No,” Wyndham expelled as fiercely, coming on the tips of her cry of relief as she buried her face into his chest. Her tears dampened his shirt as he rocked her in his embrace and she clutched him back. The relief was an acute pain in her chest, making her tears turn into sobs.

  “I would have, gladly, to save you,” Wyndham uttered, tilting her face up to his, to then peck kisses on her trembling lips. “As you would have for me, my love, my life,” he finished, as he tasted her small sobs and tears again with his lips.

  “Yes,” she gasped on a retreating sob against his lips. “My love, my life.” The impassioned sound Wyndham made at her love-filled endearment inflamed her senses, and crumbled her sobs into heated whimpers.

  “Christ, Orelan,” he growled hoarsely as he seized the sides of her face, lifting her lips to his. Their mouths crashed together with their lips moving madly over each other’s. She pressed her body to his, ardently soaking up his strength and passion. She could feel the evidence of his love and need. She could feel the thick ridge of his power and masculinity, pressing firmly into her belly. She squirmed against it, acknowledging the male potency with her own needy and yielding softness. The knobbed head, the thickly heated shaft, burned its outline into her flesh as their lips torridly groped each other.

  Wyndham’s hand, with his fingers splayed, clasped the back of her head, anchoring it as his tongue thrust deep into her mouth, while his other hand with fingers spread, clasped her bottom, lifting her body up to his body.

  “Mm, mm,” she cried around his tongue, sucking on it strongly and deeply, as her arms wound around his neck. His fingers squeezed over the wiggling plumpness of her buttocks, making her gasp, as his tongue coupled her mouth with thick heated thrusts. The thinness of her night gown was no barrier to his fingers spread over her buttocks, with one finger pressing intimately into the crease. Its arousing presence was fingering her with passionate promise that wet her sex, which was riding over the impression of his timbered cock.

  “God,” Wyndham exclaimed sharply, then lifting her and himself in one impossibly strong motion of his tall body. Her legs instantly wrapped around his lean hips for support as he stood upright. She straddled him as he held her aloft with his strength and their lips greedily clung together, begging each other for more.

  “Oh, Wyndham, oh,” she whimpered, feeling the lips of her splayed loins rubbing against the wide base of Wyndham’s pene. It felt so good that she slid the drenched recesses of her swollen sex up and down over the stiff root, using Wyndham’s wide shoulders as balance.

  He groaned a heated erotic sound. Then he used his hands, gripping the globes of her buttocks to help the motion. Lifting and lowering her, rubbing her aroused inner lips over the broad rigid mass. Tearing his lips away from her lips, he uttered a male growling. “Your pussy is so hot and wet, spitfire. Rub it on my cock, baby love, get me wet.”

  “Wyndham,” she gasped as they ground their loins together. One stout, one splayed, mingling and becoming slippery against the cloth that separated them. The words Wyndham used inflamed her more, as she cried, “My pussy aches, my puma! My pussy aches for your big pene.”

  “Christ, Orelan,” Wyndham rasped hoarsely. “Say it again, baby love. Say it again,” he demanded.

  Orelan feverishly rubbed her sex against Wyndham, as she whimpered. “My Wyndham, my pussy aches so for your big pene, mio amore.”

  “Yes,” Wyndham hissed, and then his body was in motion, walking with a limp toward the bed as he sought out Orelan’s lips for another wet and hot kiss. He was so engrossed in his fiery and sexy woman, the only way he knew that he’d reached his goal was by his knees bumping into the bed’s frame. She was fire and love . . . and she was his.

  He took her quickly down to the bed, laying her on her back, while her legs around his waist propelled him down with her. His injured knee, rebelled with a spasm, as he tried to kneel on it. His hot lusty mind ignored it and he knelt just on his one good knee as he rose upward and reached forward to grip the collar of Orelan’s gauzy nightgown. A portion of his mind cautioned slowness. But his lust was master as he rent the flimsy material down the front.

  Orelan gasped. Her legs falling away from his hips as her hands hastily lowered to clutch one edge of the torn nightgown over her mon’s. Her golden eyes were molten with passion, yet surprised and anxious as her perfect breasts heaved with turgid pink nipples pointing at him. He growled with an, “I am going to fuck you sound,” then he reached forward with the intention of brushing her hands away from his prize.

  “No, Wyndham, please no,” she whimpered, just as his hand reached her hands covering his goal. He had her legs splayed between his knees and she was stripped nude with only a scant piece of cloth clutched between her thighs, as he knelt, while towering over her. Dripping wet thighs. Hot cunt lips, swollen and wet just for him. Nothing on this earth could have stopped him, except for Orelan’s impassioned plea.

  “I beg you,” she whimpered with golden tears forming in her wide eyes. “Please,” she gasped.

  A tenor groan hissed from his throat, as his body shook, becoming so tense, he thought it possible he might break. His head dropped in supplication between Orelan’s plump breasts, for one agonizing moment. Then, he pushed away strongly with his arms and fell onto his back on the bed with his chest heaving. Christ, he had fucked it up again. Even with all his good intentions, he thought. He tried to think. So difficult, knifing through his rampant lust. His chest rose and fell. Sweat glistened there, beneath his shirt and pants. Jesus, at least he was still dressed.

  “Wyndham?” Orelan whispered.

  Wyndham took a deep and steadying breath. “Yes, baby love?” It was a cautious question and answer as he stared at the wooden beams on the ceiling in the Captain’s cabin.

  “The tattoo,” she gasped, with nearly a whimper.

  Jesus. He grimaced with his gut clenching like steel. What did a man do in a situation like this one? He rolled over and reached for Orelan, bringing her resisting body into his embrace. “Please, Orelan, let me hold you,” he murmured. Thankful moments later when he felt her body relaxing a bit even though she continued to tremble.r />
  “Orelan, I love you,” he murmured into her hair as he held her close and warm against his body.

  “Oh, Wyndham,” she mumbled into his chest, where her lips touched his skin, between the opening edges of his shirt.

  He valiantly ignored that and her soft warm nakedness resting so tantalizingly against him. This was for a life time. How could he explain to her that he would not be dissuaded in the least by a tattoo of any kind placed on her tender, moist, and spectacularly beckoning cove? A place he humbly called his own and intended to covet religiously. Just thinking of it, sent a spectacular throbbing into the base of his cock. Which he once again strove to ignore.

  “Do you trust me, Orelan?” he asked with his voice deep in huskiness.

  “Yes,” she murmured instantly and without any sound of reservation.

  “With your life?” he asked in a whisper.

  She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes. “Yes . . . always,” she whispered.

  He smiled. It was a true honest smile. Orelan’s eyes widened as she gazed at his arching lips, then she looked up into his eyes again. There was a hint of wonder and dawning pleasure in her eyes, as she murmured, “My Wyndham, you never smile.”

  “Your Wyndham is in love, Orelan.” He grinned now. “Your Wyndham is in love with a fiery woman, who has set his heart on fire. And who . . . asked him to marry her.”

  “Wyndham!” A tentative smile broke across Orelan’s lips.

  “And I have accepted, my fiery woman. My wonderful beautiful, spitfire,” he said, teasing. “This very night in fact,” he finished with an arched eyebrow.

  “This very night?” she exclaimed.

  “The Captain of the ship will marry us this very night, Orelan. Because I am allowing no chance for you to get away from me ever again. I have found that I am very possessive where you are concerned.” And then, he added on a deep murmur, “My baby love.”