Hannah

Carrie and Jonathan sat side by side in lounge chairs on the First Class Promenade. She’d hardly said a word since he’d appeared from nowhere, ready and able to save her from Victor and his amorous ways. Once again, Jonathan Lane had come to the rescue. Carrie wondered how many times in his life he’d been the one to save the day and decided to let her thoughts linger there rather than on the unscrupulous millionaire who’d been after her attention.
“What exactly did he say to you?” Jonathan asked, keeping his voice low.
On his other side sat a young lady who was probably only around twelve years of age. Carrie studied her face for a moment, thinking she looked a bit like Ruth, though this girl was blonde.
“Carrie?”
Jonathan’s voice cut through her thoughts. She’d been trying to avoid going back over the conversation, but it seemed he was insisting upon it. “Oh, he basically tried to leverage my position against me. He said that someone like me would do very well to be with him, that sort of thing.” That was the gist of it. Carrie didn’t want to tell him word for word. It was bad enough just having some of Victor’s statements bouncing around in her head.
“And no one else came over to intervene?” Jonathan made a fist with one hand and tapped it against the open palm of his other. It was evident he was irritated, if not downright upset, about the interaction. But Victor was a rich, powerful man, and even though their employer was even more so, Charlie wasn’t on the boat.
“Well, someone did come to see if I was all right,” Carrie admitted. Visions of Robert’s face when she’d told him that she was fine flittered through her mind. He would put himself in an impossible position if he went against the man who paid him, so she’d had to make Robert think she was fine.
But then, what did that make him think of her?
“What happened?” he asked, leaning back in his seat and dropping his hands so that he was no longer punching himself.
She shook her head. “Nothing. I just told the gentleman I was fine, and he went on his way.” She didn’t want to mention Robert to Jonathan. They knew one another, for one thing, and she didn’t want Jonathan to bring up the wedding and how she’d danced with the man as if she thought he hung the moon.
Thinking of those chocolate brown eyes, the way his hair swooped to one side, his muscular build, he probably would’ve been capable of hanging the moon….
“Well, I hate to say it,” Jonathan chimed in, interrupting her thoughts once more–for the better, “but I think perhaps you should do all that you can to avoid Mr. Anderson for the rest of our trip.”
Carrie scoffed, a strange mix between a laugh and a sigh coming out of her mouth as she stared at him. Then, she realized he was serious. “Wait–you think I should essentially lock myself in my chambers until the voyage is over? Don’t be ridiculous, Jonathan.”
“I’m serious, Carrie. Unless I’m with you to keep you out of harm’s way, I think you should stay in your room and spend your days staring at the ocean out there. It’s the same body of water as this one, you know?” He gestured at the great blue sea before them, a jesting smile on his face.
“Yes, I am aware.” She shook her head. “But Jonathan, you’ll recall that the last time I made this trip I slept almost the entire time. It was so boring sitting in our rooms with Ms. Meg and Mr. Ashton. I’d hated it. I can’t imagine having to do that again. I’m sure that Mr. Anderson will find someone else that tickles his fancy soon enough, and when he does, he’ll leave me alone. Besides, it’s not as if I’ll ever be alone in his company.”
Jonathan began to shake his head before she even finished her statement. He pulled his hat off and slicked back his hair. “I don’t know, Carrie. Men like that see women like you as a challenge.”
“Women like me?” She pretended to be offended. Though she had no idea what he meant by the statement, she was sure it was nothing bad.
“That’s right. Women like you with morals and scruples,” he clarified. “He’s used to getting exactly what he wants from whomever he wants it from, and with you, he’s going to have to learn to understand a word he’s never heard in his life.”
‘What word is that?”
“No,” he replied curtly.
Carrie would’ve guessed that’s the word he meant. She stifled a smile. “Listen, I understand you want to keep me safe, and I appreciate it. But I think I’ll be just fine.”
“I’ll go in and speak to the kind folks in charge of dinner and see if we can have our table switched,” he proposed. “I’m sure there are plenty of people who would be completely enraptured at the thought of dining with Victor Anderson.”
“That is a good idea.” Not having to sit by him at dinner would give her a better chance to keep herself out of his line of sight and off his mind.
“I don’t blame you for not wanting to miss out on adventures.” The pretty blonde girl on the other side of Jonathan’s voice was light as air as the breeze lifted it to Carrie’s ear.
A bit surprised to hear her speak, Carrie leaned around Jonathan to see her. “What’s that, miss?” she asked with a friendly smile.
“I said I shouldn’t want to miss out on the adventures we may encounter on the sea either.” Her accent was British, and her manners were polite and kind.
By the looks of the older woman on the other side of her, it was clear the young woman must be wealthy. The scrunched up mouth and pouty eyes looked every bit like a proper British governess to Carrie.
“Where are you traveling to?” Jonathan asked her, his demeanor changing instantly now that he was speaking to a child. “Are you going home from a holiday abroad?”
The young woman shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not. I’m headed to boarding school for summer session,” she replied with a deep sigh.
“Oh? Are you not excited about such an interesting endeavor?” Jonathan’s tone conveyed to Carrie that he was trying his best to make the girl feel better about where she was headed. She obviously had no choice in the matter.
With her long blonde hair dancing around her shoulders like ribbons, catching the sunlight and shining almost like spun gold, she continued to shake her head. “I didn’t want to leave home.”
“You’ll be fine,” the gruff woman on the far side of her said without so much as turning her head.
The girl cleared her throat. “Mrs. Smythe believes I should take advantage of the opportunity afforded to me.” She spoke in the tone an older woman might use to try to convey to a youngster that they needed to accept their fate.
“Mrs. Smythe is a wise woman,” Jonathan concluded. He smiled at the woman, but she still refused to turn attention to her ward or anyone else. Once she made it clear she had no interest, Jonathan extended his hand to the young girl. “I’m Jonathan Lane.”
She looked at his hand for a moment as if assessing whether this stranger was the kind one was allowed to speak to before slipping her much smaller hand into his palm. “Hannah Murphy.”
“Pleased to meet you. This is my friend, Carrie Boxhall. We are from New York.”
Carrie leaned around Jonathan to shake Hannah’s hand. “Lovely to meet you, dear,” she said. The girl’s grasp was firmer than she’d expected. “Where are you from?”
“I’m from Liverpool originally, but my parents moved us to New York a few years ago. My father is in the steel industry–was in the steel industry.” Hannah’s eyes shifted so that she was looking at the decking beneath their chairs.
Carrie couldn’t help but let a small, “Oh,” escape her lips as she realized Hannah had lost her father. “I’m so very sorry.”
“It was an automobile accident.” Hannah looked up then, sucking in a breath and righting her posture as she’d no doubt been coached to do by Mrs. Smyth or someone a bit more interested in the child. “My mother passed away as well.”
With that, Carrie covered her mouth with both hands as Jonathan gasped in shock. He spoke first. “That’s tragic, dear Hannah. I’m so very sorry to hear of your loss. Was it recent?”
She nodded. “In February. The roads were slick. It was a terrible accident.”
“I’m also very sorry.” Carrie reached around Jonathan and took her hand, squeezing it. “You’re so young to have lost both parents.”
“Thank you.” Hannah took a second to breathe, and Carrie could see in her face that she was trying not to cry. No doubt she’d been told to suck it up or something of that nature. “At any rate, I’ll be continuing my studies in Liverpool now that I am an… orphan.”
Carrie wanted to offer to take the child in, to take her home, to raise her as her own flesh and blood, but that wouldn’t be appropriate, and it was clear that the Murphys had left their daughter some means to get by on. She was dressed well, her hair was immaculate, and she was a First Class passenger on her way across the ocean.
“Well, if there’s anything either of us can do for you while you’re on your journey to school, please let us know,” Jonathan offered, and Carrie nodded along with him. “You seem like an intelligent, kind young woman, and we hope that you have a pleasant journey, perhaps with a bit of the adventure you spoke of, and that your studies go well once you’re back in Liverpool.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Hannah’s face brightened, and Carrie imagined that was because she now saw the opportunity to escape from her governess, at least for a little while. “Actually, I’ve heard there may be some dolphins swimming alongside our ship from time to time.”
“Would you like to go have a look?” Carrie offered, getting to her feet. “We can stand over there by the railing where Mrs. Smythe can keep an eye on you.”
Mrs. Smythe didn’t even acknowledge her name being spoken, not even with a grunt or a flicker of an eyelash.
“Oh, yes. Let’s!” Hannah practically leapt off her seat and moved over to the railing with Carrie. Jonathan got up as well, but he stood back a bit. Carrie had the idea that he was more interested in looking for wayward billionaires than swimming mammals.
As they stared out at the water looking for any sort of movement, Carrie said quietly, “I am very sorry about your parents.”
Hannah pushed up on her tiptoes, her hand raised above her eyes to help block the sun. “Thank you. I am, too, but I didn’t really know them that well. I attended boarding school in New York. My father left it in his will that I should go back to Liverpool if something should happen to him so that I would be closer to his sister, my aunt.”
“It’s good that you have someone waiting for you there.” For a moment, Carrie felt silly for thinking she should adopt the child. She did have a family, after all.
Hannah shrugged. “I don’t really know any of my family. My friends back at school were more like family to me. In my experience, friends are better than family.”
Carrie considered that for a moment. She had parents, a sister, and some cousins back home, but she hadn’t seen any of them in a long time and only spoke to them on the phone about once a year. When she thought of who her family truly was, images of Ms. Meg, Baby Henry, Mr. Ashton, Jonathan, and Kelly’s family came to mind. “I think you’re right.”
But then, one day, she did hope to have a family–a husband, some children. A proper family. She could picture them in her mind, too.
And when she pictured her husband, the face was familiar. Handsome, with dark eyes and dark hair.