Under the Moon Gate (3 page)

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.

“Hitler?” Patience was genuinely puzzled. “What does that monster have to do with anything?”

“If you know your history, you know that after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Bermuda was surrounded by German U-boats. The move cut off vital supplies, but the islands were never invaded. I’m guessing it was some secret plan that Hitler and his henchmen at German High Command devised to isolate and occupy Bermuda when the time was right. Bermuda is only a tiny speck in the ocean—only twenty-one square miles—but they say location is everything. After all, the British Navy has always viewed Bermuda as the central focus in their operations in the Atlantic and Caribbean,” Nathaniel explained. “This was especially true during World War II because of Bermuda’s strategic location between the United States and England. Can you imagine the value of controlling such a possession?”

“I’ve studied the history of this island extensively, and I’ve never heard of a Nazi plan like that.”

“You wouldn’t have. The mission was probably scrubbed before the order was issued, but I assure you it did exist. Do you doubt the Germans got this close? In 2012, a shipwreck hunter discovered the remains of a World War II merchant ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Cape Cod. Certainly they would have been here, too.”

“Even if what you say is true, what could that possibly have to do with my grandfather? Or his killer? My grandfather wasn’t German. He was Swiss.”

“It seems being Swiss is a cure for all ills these days,” Nathaniel said. “Are you certain of his nationality?”

“Of course.”

“Well, perhaps the person you knew as your grandfather wasn’t really who he claimed to be.”

“Not who he claimed to be?” Patience repeated, confused. “What are you talking about? I think I knew my own grandfather.”

“Only what he wanted you to know.”

Patience bit her lip, hard.

“And how do you know so much about my family?”

“How did your grandfather die?”

Patience lowered her head. “He met with…foul play.”

“Foul play? You mean he was brutally murdered, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, twisting the hem of her shorts in agitation. “Why are you being so cruel? And why are we talking about this?”

“Suppose he had assumed another identity before he married your grandmother?” Nathaniel proposed. “Suppose he was a sleeper agent, sent over to Bermuda by the Germans before the war to mingle among the population, waiting to be activated and used to further the Führer’s agenda?”

“You’re delusional,” Patience accused. “How did you find me? Are you one of those ghouls who prey on other people’s misfortune? Did you read about my grandmother in the newspaper and hope to somehow profit from her death?”

“On the contrary, Patience. You stand to profit enormously from my discovery if you’d only listen to me.”

Patience was more than furious. “I assume you have proof of my grandfather’s connection to this so-called plan? Or did you just make this giant leap in your twisted little mind?”

“How else could I have found you if I didn’t have proof? Your grandfather’s real name was Wilhelm von Hesselweiss. His code name was
Insel Adler
—Island Eagle—and his rank was
Kapitänleutnant
in the
Kriegsmarine
, serving under Rear Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris, the same man who headed up the
Abwehr
, Germany’s spy agency. I’ve also uncovered some details of your grandfather’s service record and training. For instance, he did a stint with the
B-Dienst
—that’s German naval communications intelligence, if you don’t know, also reporting up through Canaris.”

“Why would I know something like that?” Patience scowled. “And how do
you
? What are you, some kind of pervert? How dare you spew your venomous lies about a decent man like my grandfather? The war’s over, in case you haven’t heard, and no one wants to hear about it anymore.” She shot up from the couch, pointing to the door. “I want you to leave now!”

Nathaniel bristled at the insult but remained calm as he took her hands and gently pulled her back down. “Now, would you please let me continue? Don’t you want to know the truth?”

Patience gritted her teeth but listened.

“I have retrieved some documents with his undercover address, which is still
your
address, his papers, maps of the island, and schematics of the U.S. military bases in Bermuda. He had all the bases covered, so to speak, from A to Z,” noted Nathaniel, “from the U.S. Army base on St. David’s Island, Fort Bell, to the U.S. Navy telecommunications center on Zuill’s Park Road.”

“Tell me again how you came across these documents?”

“My uncle used to do a lot of shipwreck salvage. He left a trunk with my grandmother before he died unexpectedly, and she willed it to me when she died. After her funeral, when I finally got a look at the contents of the chest, I was fascinated by what I discovered. I’ve studied the papers thoroughly, and there’s no doubt about their authenticity. I think you’ll be surprised by the significance of what else my uncle hauled up from the bottom of the Atlantic.”