“What I do know is that if William hadn’t come to Bermuda, he’d never have met your grandmother and you never would have been born. And I wouldn’t have known you. So whoever your grandfather was, he was yours, and I’ll always be eternally grateful to him.
“History has come full circle. Your grandfather could have destroyed the island, but his love for your grandmother saved it. And now you are heading the annual celebration to commemorate the discovery of the island.”
Patience buried herself in his arms, crying tears of joy. “Do you understand how much this means to me?”
“Do you understand how much you mean to me? How long I’ve waited for you, my sweet, funny Patience? How much I love you? I thought I had to leave you before you left me, do you see? That’s the way it always happens.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Nathaniel.”
“Promise me, promise me, my love,” he said, crushing her to him.
“I won’t ever leave you, Nathaniel,” Patience vowed. “You’re everything I want. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
“But you love your home,” Nathaniel protested. “I didn’t want to take you away from where your heart is. I struggled with that. In the end, I couldn’t do that to you.”
“Nathaniel, my heart is with you. It always will be. I do love my home and, for a moment, I didn’t think I’d have the strength to follow you. But I am every inch William Whitestone’s granddaughter. I don’t want to live without you. I want to go wherever you go. That’s how strong my love is for you, Nathaniel.”
He whipped off his jacket and wrapped it snugly around her.
“No, my home is with you,” Nathaniel said. “That’s what I’ve sailed halfway around the world to discover.”
He hesitated, and then smiled. “You know, I’ve been studying up on some facts about Bermuda. For instance, did you know that during the War of 1812, the British fleet departed Bermuda and successfully burned Washington, D.C., to the ground?”
“Oh, my,” Patience said, her eyes fluttering. Any Bermuda school child knew that, but she played along for Nathaniel’s benefit.
“And did you know that Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, Queen Victoria’s daughter, put Bermuda on the tourist map by visiting in 1883?”
Patience smiled and struggled not to say, “She stayed in Paget for ten weeks. They renamed the Pembroke Hotel as the Princess Hotel in her honor.”
“And did you know that the American painter Winslow Homer also visited Bermuda?”
Patience smiled and pretended ignorance, chuckling as she remembered the treasured Homer that hung on the wall in her grandparents’ bedroom.
“Is that so?” Patience feigned surprise.
“Yes.”
“Now you’re playing dirty, sailor. Keep reciting those Bermuda facts. You’re getting me hot. I’m afraid that omelet is going to have to wait until we’ve satisfied our other appetites.”
“You’re starting to sound just like Cecilia.”
“No, it’s the new Patience.”
“I fell in love with the old Patience,” Nathaniel mused, “but I think I’m going to like this new Patience, too.” He kissed her lightly. “There are a lot of ties between our two countries—strong connections back to early colonial times. In fact, I think we need to explore those connections more intimately.” He kissed her again, more slowly. “I’ve got an entire book about Bermuda down in my cabin, if you’d care to join me. It’s got pictures and everything.”
“I think I’m about to swoon. Tell me more.”
“Those connections have been strengthened by trade, travel, and…” He paused for effect. “…intermarriage.”
“Intermarriage?” Patience gulped, her heart galloping.
“Yes. I’d like to be back on the island before the business offices and banks close, so we can get the paperwork in motion.”
“Paperwork?” she stuttered.
“For our marriage license.”
Patience stared out to sea, clasping her new locket.
Nathaniel took her hand in his. “Are things moving too fast? Because if they are, we can slow it down, sweetheart. I know we’ve only just met, but I feel like I’ve waited so long for you, and I’d rather not wait another minute.”
Wasn’t this what Patience had secretly dreamed of, longed for? To be swept away by a dark, handsome pirate? She needed fast and adventurous. And she needed Nathaniel. She didn’t want to be alone anymore. She had existed her whole life without him and thought she was content. But loving him changed everything. It opened up a world of possibilities. Was theirs as strong a love as the love her grandparents had felt for each other? She thought it must be.
“Marry me, Patience. I know we were meant to be together. For always.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in destiny.”
“I didn’t believe in a lot of things…before I met you.”
“Meant to be. Oh, I like the sound of that. Yes, Nathaniel, I’ll marry you.”
“Then we’ll be married under the moon gate, like your grandparents.”
“How right, how perfect!”
“Picture it, with all your friends looking on.”
“And Cecilia on the prowl for husband number four.”
“Maybe we should introduce her to Hamilton Farnsworth,” Nathaniel suggested. “Maybe husband number four, whoever he is, poor soul, will make her as happy as you make me.”
“Oh, Nathaniel. Do I really make you happy?”
His arm tightened around her waist.
“Come down below and I’ll show you just how much. And one day, soon I hope, we’ll make a little miracle of our own.”
After, when they lay together in his cabin, swaying with the gentle rhythm of the boat, still dazed and overwhelmed by their strong love for each other, Nathaniel said, “How does a honeymoon in Virginia sound?”
“Wonderful,” she murmured.
“I want to take you to my home, to Fair Winds. And that’s just the beginning, Patience. I want to show you the world, give you the world.”
“I’d like to see it with you. But where will we live?”
“Right here in paradise,” Nathaniel said.
“You mean on the Fair Winds?”
“No, in Bermuda.”
Tears sprang into her eyes and Nathaniel kissed them away slowly.
Then Patience spoke of her grandfather. “Nathaniel, despite everything we’ve learned, I still love my grandfather. And I know he loved me.”
“He was your grandfather,” Nathaniel said simply, linking his fingers with hers. “Of course he loved you. How could he not? And so do I. I don’t know how anyone, anywhere, could love another person the way I love you at this moment in time,” Nathaniel pledged, answering all her questions.
Patience held the new gold locket in her hand, rubbed her thumb over the intertwined initials, P and N, overwhelmed by the immense love it represented. And she could hardly contain her joy when she looked down at the antique, square-cut emerald Nathaniel had put on her finger in the cabin. It had been his grandmother’s. He had been carrying it on the boat since her funeral. When he put it on her finger he said he had finally found someone worthy to wear it. Someone he wanted to share the rest of his life with.
Nathaniel looked up at the heavens. The stars were aligned, their destinies realized, and their eternal searching souls were at last united.
“I wish you could have known Gran,” Nathaniel said. “You would have liked her, and she would have loved you. She would have said her prediction had come true, that I’d finally found my destiny.”
To find out where the centuries-old love story began, read DESTINY: A BERMUDA LOVE STORY, the prequel to Under The Moon Gate.
The relationship of star-crossed lovers Elizabeth Sutton and Edward Morgan founders off the coast of Bermuda with the shipwreck of the Sea Venture in the seventeenth century, when Edward is seduced by the captain’s daughter and trapped into an unhappy marriage.
When Edward cont
inues his voyage to Virginia to rescue the starving Jamestown Colony, Elizabeth, who finds herself pregnant with Edward’s child, is forced to begin a new life without him despite following him as far as Bermuda. Will Edward return to discover the daughter he never knew existed? Can the lovers ever be reunited? Will their eternally searching souls finally fulfill their destiny?
Turn the page for a brief excerpt…
DESTINY: A BERMUDA LOVE STORY
Chapter One
Plymouth in Devon, England, Summer 1609
Edward Morgan placed the chain of the heart-shaped locket around Elizabeth’s neck and lowered his mouth to hers for a searing farewell kiss. He wanted to brand this moment in his memory. She was so young, so impossibly beautiful. She tasted sweet, so sweet. And she was his.
“Now we are officially promised to each other,” he vowed.
Elizabeth lifted the gleaming silver locket and smiled at the intertwined E’s newly engraved in script on the back of the pendant.
“Oh, Edward! You had our initials engraved. It’s so fancy. But the only promise I need from you is that you’ll come back for me.”
“I promise that wherever I am, no matter what happens, I will find you, Elizabeth Sutton.”
“I will be waiting,” Elizabeth answered with a certainty that signaled nothing could ever come between them. “Forever, if I have to.”
A word about the author…
Marilyn Baron is a public relations consultant in Atlanta. She’s a PRO member of Romance Writers of America (RWA) and Georgia Romance Writers (GRW) and winner of the GRW 2009 Chapter Service Award. She writes humorous women’s fiction, romantic suspense, and paranormal. She graduated from The University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism and a minor in Creative Writing.
Born in Miami, Florida, Marilyn lives in Roswell, Georgia, with her husband, and they have two daughters. She loves to travel. Her favorite place to visit is Italy, where she studied for six months in her junior year of college.
She loves Bermuda and hopes her readers will love “visiting” this romantic and exotic destination getaway in her new novel Under the Moon Gate, and its prequel Destiny: A Bermuda Love Story, and find it as charming and inviting as she does.
Author e-mail:
[email protected]
Petit Fours and Hot Tamales blog:
www.petitfoursandhottamales.com
To find out more about Marilyn and her books, visit her Web site at:
www.marilynbaron.com
Thank you for purchasing
this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Under the Moon Gate Page 27