Under the Moon Gate

by Marilyn Baron

  “I don’t know you.”

  “But I know you,” he said, eyeing her narrowly. “You’re Patience Katarina Whitestone.”

  “Patience Katherine Whitestone,” she corrected. No one had called her Katarina since her grandfather died. She’d loved the way the hard sound of her middle name had tripped off his tongue, like a lullaby, when she was half asleep and he thought she couldn’t hear it. “If you don’t leave this instant, I’ll have to notify the authorities.”

  “I don’t think you’ll want to call the authorities after you hear what I’ve come to say.”

  The man was speaking in riddles again. And Patience couldn’t take much more of his insolence—or the unsettling effect his strange behavior had on her.

  “Are you threatening me?” Patience bristled, surfacing from her fog and summoning a burst of energy. “Because I’m not alone here. Sallie will be back in a minute, and I have a gun.” Lifting her chin with a defiant jerk, she tried for a look of bravado she didn’t really feel. For all she knew, the man could be a criminal—a murderer—or her stalker.

  “I’m no threat to you,” he assured her, as if he had the ability to read her mind.

  “Tell me who you are, and I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “My name is Nathaniel Morgan. You have something I want. And I have something you want. I think I may know who killed your grandfather.”

  Patience faltered. The color drained from her face, replaced by a look of panic.

  “What do you know about my grandfather’s death?” she demanded weakly as she faced him squarely, barely able to catch a breath, her knees about to buckle.

  “More than you would want to know, I imagine, liebchen.” He spoke the last word like a caress, lowering his voice, with enough of a hint of sensuality and familiarity, to stir something within her.

  Liebchen—darling, love, sweetheart.

  “Goodbye, liebchen,” were the last words her grandfather spoke to her. But how could this man have known that, unless he’d been there? And that would mean… She could still see her grandfather’s blood on her hands. Still feel the thickness that had oozed from his wounds and soaked her bright coral sundress. She needed to be on guard, but suddenly she was exhausted, overcome by a languorous feeling and a sensation of dizziness. Her mind clouded. Her pulse pounded as lightheadedness overtook her.

  Chapter 2

  What the devil? The woman’s long lashes fluttered like a flag at half-mast. Her eyes glazed over. She was losing her sea legs. Nathaniel reached across the threshold as Patience Whitestone collapsed into his waiting arms.

  Damn. He had a history of scaring women off, but he hadn’t meant to frighten her into a dead faint. As usual, he had bungled it, and now she’d passed out.

  “Patience, can you hear me?” Nathaniel called frantically as he closed the door and carried her to an overstuffed couch in the next room. He grabbed a magazine from the coffee table and tried fanning her, shaking her lightly, sprinkling her skin with water from a pitcher on the marble stand behind the couch, even stroking her face gently. He was at his wit’s end. And that Sallie person she’d mentioned was nowhere to be found.

  Helpless, Nathaniel looked down at Patience. Somehow he felt a connection with this woman. He had dreamed of her, or someone like her, on the deck of his boat, alone in the middle of the ocean, on a dark night drenched in moonlight, under a heaven sprinkled with stars, drifting in and out of sleep, of consciousness, as his vessel rocked toward Bermuda. But nothing could have prepared him for this visceral reaction to the flesh-and-blood woman who’d gone limp in his arms.

  The truth of it had first hit him like a powerful wave when she opened the door to him earlier, nearly knocking the wind from his sails. And he’d detected a spark of recognition in her face, too. He was sure of it. She’d looked as stunned as he felt.

  Before she died, his grandmother foretold he would find his destiny in Bermuda. He didn’t believe any of that hogwash about destiny or fate. But she had made him promise to go to the island and hand deliver a letter and a small fortune in diamonds to William Whitestone. He was honoring that promise now; however, he intended to take something much more valuable back with him.

  But William Whitestone was dead, and so was his wife. Was Nathaniel obligated to reveal the contents of the letter to Whitestone’s granddaughter? And what was his grandmother’s connection to the German spy William Whitestone and his dangerous wartime associate Nighthawk?

  He had a purpose in Bermuda beyond humoring his dying grandmother. He had come for the gold his uncle had told him about, and he was determined to locate and leave with every last ounce of it. The trip was long overdue, and no woman, breathtakingly beautiful or not, was going to interfere with his business here.

  Nathaniel expected Patience wouldn’t be cooperative. He couldn’t just come right out and tell her the reason for his visit. He would have to skillfully navigate the choppy waters.

  Naturally, she’d be angry. Anger only seemed to make her more magnificent, if that were possible, and more vulnerable. He couldn’t afford to have her fall apart. He wanted her alert when he questioned her. She was going to hear him out, whether she wanted to or not. But first he needed some information from her. And he could hardly get answers from an unconscious woman.

  There was really no easy way to tell her about her grandfather. And no surer way to confirm whether she knew the truth about him than to question her face to face.

  Looking into that face, Nathaniel acted on another impulse, one he couldn’t have controlled even if he cared to. He reached to slide a lock of her golden hair between his fingers. Somehow he’d known her hair would feel like fine silk. If he were the poetic type he’d tell her, if she ever regained consciousness.

  Nathaniel looked around the room and out the window at the expansive grounds. Prime Bermuda real estate in one of Bermuda’s most exclusive residential areas—prestigious Tucker’s Town. This quaint village of splendid properties was home to movie stars, prime ministers, a veritable Who’s Who of the rich and famous in Bermuda and around the world. People with legendary last names like Astor and Rockefeller.

  The sprawling stucco house, painted a pale yellow, was built in the island’s traditional architectural style and comfortably but luxuriously furnished. Morning glory vines ran wild along the roadside. Marigold House was fronted by a pair of elegant gateposts and accessed by a sweep of tapered stone steps leading to the front door in the traditional welcoming-arms pattern. Unlike the tepid welcome Patience had given him. Why didn’t the woman wake up?

  Frustrated, he pulled her toward him and kissed her. That always seemed to work in the movies and in fairytales. The soft brush of her lips against his felt like the tiniest whisper of hummingbird wings. She stirred, and her arms wound around his neck involuntarily until the two of them were intertwined. She responded by kissing him back tenderly, barely conscious, apparently still in a daze.

  No, actually, he was the one in a daze, an almost dreamlike spell. He clasped her tighter, gathered her closer and pressed her warm body to his. He wanted more, but romance was not part of his mission. In fact, it would be unacceptable in this instance. Not that he believed in romance. Love and romance was for fools, and he was very definitely not a fool, not anymore.

  She sighed and moved in his arms.

  “Patience,” Nathaniel whispered. “Good. You’re back.”

  Chapter 3

  Patience awoke in the pirate’s arms. He resembled a reenactor of The Bermuda Journey, just back from performing on St. George’s. No doubt he was one of the parish’s more feisty residents who belonged in the stocks or the pillory for committing a variety of public offenses, not the least of which might be scandalous behavior and taking unwarranted liberties with women. Yes, the man was definitely a St. Georgian, a consort of the devil, or at the very least, a sorcerer. Certainly he was an enchanter or a charmer. He was also hard and lean and rugged, and he looked better than any man or devil had a right to.

/>   “Patience, say something.”

  Patience tried to speak, but her mouth was dry.

  “Water,” she finally whispered. “May I have some water?”

  Nathaniel took a glass from the coffee table, filled it with water from the pitcher, and handed it to Patience.

  While she drank, she recovered her composure, but common sense prevailed and fear crept back into her consciousness. Could he be the man who was threatening her? The one who’d broken into Marigold House, who’d called her every day since her grandfather’s death, sometimes late in the night? The stalker who breathed heavily into the phone and spoke in a harsh, guttural language? The stranger who lurked in her nightmares? The police claimed they would patrol the house. Obviously they hadn’t taken her concerns seriously or this man wouldn’t have slipped through their net.

  But the man before her seemed too young to belong to the gruff voice on the telephone. And she had to admit he didn’t cause the same terrified reaction she felt when the stalker called. Her pirate sent chills down her spine, but they were chills of a different sort.

  Patience placed the water glass on the coffee table and looked out the picture window. The sun, already settling lower in the sky, was still spreading riotous sparkles across the sea. Images that had horrified her in the middle of the night—shadows in the moonlight, strange sightings, and shallow breathing—seemed less intimidating in daylight. The immediate threat had receded.

  But Patience faced a threat of another kind. She was entranced by this dark and dangerous stranger with the handsome face, this man she couldn’t seem to dismiss. The pirate was downright dazzling, and he knew it. His nearness was making her lightheaded. Or maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t eaten anything substantial in days.

  Patience struggled out of his grasp. Her lips were warm. Had he kissed her? Or was that a dream? She looked down at her hands. Because she didn’t seem to have the strength to resist, they were still firmly folded in his.

  “Keep your hands to yourself,” she said. Then she remembered his last words before everything went black.

  “My grandfather. You said something about my grandfather.” She fought to remain alert as she pulled away from him.

  Patience followed the pirate’s gaze as he scanned the room and settled on the large portrait hanging on the wall directly across from the fireplace.

  “Is that a picture of you?” he asked, veering off the subject, nodding toward a portrait of a woman in a vintage 1940s yellow gown.

  For some reason the man was stalling, drawing her attention away from the matter at hand. Okay, she’d play along. Humor him until she could get him out of her house. Because she wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t somehow connected to the man who was threatening her. His presence here now was too much of a coincidence to be circumstantial. And she didn’t believe in coincidences. She was in a weakened condition and distracted by grief, but she wasn’t stupid.

  Maybe he intended to rob her. The papers had reported that the Whitestones were the wealthiest family in Bermuda. She would keep him talking until Sallie came back into the house. Where was she, anyway?

  “No, that’s not me,” she said. “That’s my grandmother. People make that mistake all the time. That picture was painted at the Castle Harbour Hotel, where my grandparents first met. That’s the dress she was wearing when they danced together for the very first time.

  “My grandfather had the portrait done because he wanted to freeze that moment in time, capture the way he remembered her, out in the garden, under the moon gate. All my grandmother’s friends say I look exactly like she looked when she was my age. The Castle Harbour’s gone. It’s a private resort club now.” Just like my grandmother. Everything good goes.

  Now she was babbling like an idiot.

  “She is very beautiful,” Nathaniel said, and placed his hand over hers.

  Patience flushed at his touch. If he thought the woman in the portrait was beautiful, then that meant he thought she was beautiful, too.

  “Yes, she was beautiful,” Patience agreed. “I guess you didn’t hear that I buried my grandmother last week.” Why did she feel compelled to talk to this stranger about her personal loss? She tried to gauge his reaction, but his face was inscrutable, and her gaze couldn’t penetrate those vivid blue eyes.

  “I don’t appreciate your intrusion on my grief,” Patience blustered.

  ****

  “I’m really sorry to hear about your grandmother,” Nathaniel said sincerely. She hung her head, so he gave her the necessary time and space to compose herself.

  When he’d set sail from Virginia, it was with every intention of meeting with Diana Hargrave Whitestone. On his arrival in Bermuda, he’d been disappointed to read about her illness and death in The Royal Gazette. The event had merited extensive coverage. She was, after all, from one of Bermuda’s most prominent families—a Smithfield on her mother’s side. Before he learned of her death, Nathaniel had pinned all his hopes on questioning William Whitestone’s widow in person. Now his only link to the past was a grieving, doped-up granddaughter.

  He had seen Patience’s fragility at the funeral. Would her vulnerability make a difference? He couldn’t let it. He had come too far to turn back now.

  He was painfully aware of her grief. At her grandmother’s gravesite behind St. Peter’s Church, where a large crowd had gathered for the funeral, Patience had seemed isolated, even as she was surrounded by a tight-knit group of friends who closed ranks to protect her. She looked utterly lost, bereft, but she put on a brave front. She hadn’t shed one tear. She held up her head regally, like a princess. And he had begun to think of her as one.

  Nathaniel had gone to Bermuda’s first church early on the morning of Diana Whitestone’s funeral, waiting to see Patience. The beauty of the church’s whitewashed façade drew him, the rich historical feel and the peacefulness of the place, saturated with the aroma of cedar, impressed him. And, even at a distance, he was blown away by the stunning beauty of the granddaughter.

  At the conclusion of the service, Patience knelt in front of her grandfather’s grave and gingerly placed a clutch of colorful flowers there. Then she’d raised her head, drifted through the crowd of mourners, and silently walked down the chalk-white steps to the limousine waiting in front of the church.

  He hadn’t talked with her then because the timing was all wrong. He watched the house for a whole week, waiting for her to show herself. Since she didn’t so much as peek her head out the front door, he felt he had no choice but to go in after her. He was tired of waiting.

  Now the only one who could give him the truth was Patience—if, indeed, she knew it. And he surmised that she did. How could she live in the same house with her grandfather all these years and not know something as basic as his true identity?

  He wondered how William Whitestone had answered his granddaughter when she asked, “What did you do in the war, Grandfather?” Wondered whether he had been honest with Patience and whether she would be honest with him when he confronted her. He could see she was still grieving for her grandmother, but her first instinct would be to protect her grandfather’s memory at all costs.

  Suppressing another urge to run his fingers through that glorious mop of blonde curls that crowned her head like a halo, Nathaniel stood there for a minute, drinking her in. He tried his best not to stare at her long legs in those short shorts or feast his eyes on the clingy T-shirt that barely disguised her curves. Even the fluffy bunny slippers looked sexy on her. He couldn’t resist reaching out to press his finger to her cheek.

  Patience shivered and blushed at his touch.

  “Just trying to remove a smudge from your face,” he answered. “Is that a capital offense in Bermuda?”

  Her hand flew up to her cheek. “Oh, it must be the watercolors.” She sighed.

  Nathaniel began studying another portrait on the far side of the room.

  “That was my great-grandfather, Vice Admiral Sir Stirling Hargrave, my grandmother’s
father. He was stationed here during World War II.”

  “Yes,” Nathaniel said, grateful for the opening. “And that is the reason I came to talk to you today.” When he turned around they were almost touching.

  Patience fidgeted with her hands. Nathaniel took them into his and stilled them. The heat from her body seemed to flow into his.

  “You’re not going to like what I have to tell you,” Nathaniel said.

  “Just say it,” Patience demanded. “What are you really doing here?”

  “I’m just trying to have a rational conversation,” Nathaniel said. Somehow, he was going to have to make Patience feel comfortable with him in the space of an afternoon. He had come this far. He may as well put it all out there. She’d probably never let him back into the house again. This might be his last opportunity to talk with her alone. He would have to start somewhere.

  “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

  Chapter 4

  The man definitely had a screw loose, Patience thought. She needed to call the police and let them know a crazy foreigner was loose in Tucker’s Town.

  “No, I don’t speak German,” Patience said.

  “Unternehmen Teufels Insel,” Nathaniel said next.

  “I don’t understand. That sounds German, too.”

  “It is. Roughly translated it means Operation Devil’s Island.”

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “Does it?” he asked pointedly, eyes narrowing.

  “Not a thing. Except that Devil’s Island or the Isles of Devils is the name sixteenth-century Spaniards gave to Bermuda when they first foundered off the coast in the 1500s, at Spanish Point—which isn’t too far from here, as a matter of fact.”

  “Unternehmen means to undertake or to attempt,” explained Nathaniel. “Many of Hitler’s plans began with that name. For example, Unternehmen Seelöwe, Operation Sea Lion, referred to the full-scale German seaborne invasion of Britain.” He looked at her inquisitively as if expecting a reaction.