Chapter 3
The cat was black. Slinky and glossy and completely unfazed by the fact it was on board a ship as it crossed the space behind the captain and made an effortless leap onto a stool set close to the panoramic windows of the bridge.
Seating itself, the cat yawned as it gave a flick of its tail and fixed its emerald-green gaze through the window at the swell of the sea beyond.
Hannah glanced at the captain, her confusion met by a warm smile.
‘That’s Portus,’ he said. ‘Ballygowan’s official ship’s cat. Named after one of the earliest artificial harbours ever created, in ancient Rome, and he’s been aboard for three years – I think it’s three?’ He glanced around and some of the other members of the crew nodded in agreement.
‘He lives on board all the time?’ Hannah didn’t know much about cats, but she’d always thought of them as mini lions, expected them to want grass and hedges and places to hunt mice and run wild in the hours of darkness.
‘Yowls if he has to go ashore for anything,’ the captain said.
‘Can I say hello?’
‘Of course.’
Hannah wandered over, fingers outstretched for Portus to sniff.
‘Very good luck, too,’ the captain said.
Hannah sucked in a breath and withdrew her fingers, worried he meant the cat might bite them. The captain stepped forward, shaking his head.
‘No, I’m sorry, I meant it’s good luck to have a cat aboard. I wasn’t wishing you good luck in touching him. He’s… well, he’s a real pussy cat, actually.’
The quiver in the captain’s eyebrows as he smiled at his own words had Hannah grinning. For the first time since she’d entered the bridge, the captain seemed to relax as he tickled the cat beneath his chin. His smile remained, too. A genuine smile, not the caged, polite version he’d managed before.
Hannah hadn’t known what to expect the captain to be like – her pirate captain imaginings had been nothing more than a ridiculous knock-off of a Hollywood version.
But if she’d had to place a bet on the physical attributes of the cruise ship’s captain, she would have punted for middle-aged or even a silver fox, portly around the belly and – for some reason she couldn’t fathom (excuse the naval pun) – not particularly tall.
Had she watched too many documentaries about life aboard submarines, with everyone ducking under bulkheads?
Whatever her imagination had been up to, she hadn’t been expecting Captain Louis King.
Easily as tall as Ian, the captain was far leaner.
Ian had played a lot of rugby. The physicality of the sport had built up his impressive muscle mass, and the fierce post-match shenanigans had ensured he could put away plenty of alcohol – which latterly had begun to thicken his waistline after a knee injury forced him to swap his love for rugby for an occasional swim when he joined her at their local pool.
Hannah wondered if the captain had any time for sport, or whether he was too busy captaining – if that was even a word.
But it wasn’t the captain’s height or his possible sporting choices that had Hannah on the back foot.
Hannah assumed it took many years to be promoted to captain of a huge ship like this – and yet Louis King didn’t look a whole lot older than she was.
Early thirties, max. And he was responsible for this entire kit and caboodle – or should that be kitten and caboodle?
She buried her fingers in the cat’s soft fur, trying to work out why it mattered.
Why the fact he had a small badge fixed to his shirt pocket that read, ‘Santa stops on this ship’, made her want to ask him who had given it to him.
Did he have a family, or was he wearing it to amuse children on this cruise?
Or maybe he simply had a good sense of humour – something Ian had never been particularly troubled by.
But who cared about any of it? None of it should matter to Hannah, so long as he was proficient in his job and didn’t crash the ship, or whatever the official term was for hitting a rock and turning the Ballygowan into a modern-day Titanic.
Nor did his sleek dark hair matter – even if it was almost as midnight as the cat’s fur and closely cut to his head, smart sharp lines around the backs of his ears and collar – or his heavy-lidded dark eyes whose gaze didn’t seem to stray from her, or the way he held his captain’s hat under his arm like he was on parade.
Presumably he had hold of it because someone who wasn’t crew was on the bridge – it seemed impossible to believe he would carry it around like that all day, just for the sake of it.
Or the way he found it difficult to smile, until he forgot himself and grinned at the cat, revealing a broad and generous smile.
None of that mattered. It was nothing more than idle observation.
And Hannah decided she’d held up her side of the bargain she felt had been struck when that card had been pushed under her door. But now it was time to retreat to the safety of her cabin, hide out until hunger or some other factor forced her into the ship’s corridors again.
‘Well, thank you for inviting me to see the bridge,’ she said.
‘It’s been really fascinating.’ It had been – and she’d only seen a fraction of what it took to run a ship like this – but she was suddenly desperate to get away.
‘I’d better leave you to it. I’m sure you’ve got lots of other people eager to take their turn. ’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Not yet, anyway – I heard you were here on your…’ He failed to complete his sentence, colour seeping across his cheeks as he looked awkward.
‘I mean, we do send out invitations, and there’s also a bit of an open-door policy if anyone fancies coming up here and taking a look, but Martin mentioned you and… ’
Well, that was fantastic. Martin, her friendly porter, had felt she was worthy of enough pity to have the bloody captain asking her into the bridge.
She pressed her lips together to prevent herself from telling the assembled company to get knotted, that she would feel a lot better if everyone would just leave her the hell alone.
That they had no idea what she’d gone through and the last thing she needed – or wanted – was the pity of strangers.
Louis shook his head. ‘We just wanted to welcome you aboard – that’s all. I hope you have a great Christmas on the Ballygowan, and if there’s anything you need don’t hesitate to contact a member of the crew.’
Blah, blah, blah.
Hannah pulled in as dignified a breath as she could manage.
‘Thank you so much.’
She gave the cat a parting stroke, then left the bridge with as much decorum as she could manage, leaving Martin for dust as he attempted to follow her along the corridor and, even though the bridge was on the same deck as her cabin, she plummeted down the first set of stairs she came across.
Louis grimaced. He couldn’t have made much more of a mess of that, could he?
Why had he felt the need to draw attention to Hannah’s situation in that clumsy way?
And although she’d had the good grace not to tell him where to stick his welcome, the expression on her face as she left had spoken volumes.
What was that saying about a picture being worth a thousand words?
Well, even if Hannah hadn’t made her feelings clear in her faked parting smile, she wouldn’t have needed to use a thousand words to explain.
He should never have taken it upon himself to show her around the bridge.
He should have got his Officer of the Watch, Maria, to do it.
She was so much better with interpersonal skills – and, being originally from St Lucia, she was always the go-to for the best-kept secrets for getting the most out of visiting the southern Caribbean. Passengers adored Maria.
Tickling Portus under the chin went some way to rebalancing him, before he turned to the rest of the crew.
‘First of many,’ Maria said. ‘She seemed nice.’
Maria must have been far enough away to have missed his awkward attempt at empathy. Louis did his best to smile as the conversation continued around him.
‘Yes – she seemed genuinely interested. I wonder how long it will be until we get a yachtie in here,’ piped up Tim, Assistant Officer of the Watch and almost as newly installed in his role as Louis was.
‘I’m thinking of taking bets. Two to one it’s within the first two days, but I might lengthen the odds if anyone wants to have a go at guessing what their opening comment will be. ’
‘It’ll be something to do with the Isle of Wight,’ another officer said. ‘Or how much their marina charges are compared to ours.’
‘As long as we don’t have to compare the size of anything, I’ll be happy,’ Louis said.
‘Oh, Captain – whatever do you mean? I’m sure yours will be by far the largest,’ Maria mocked, allowing her rich accent to roll its way across her words, grinning as she turned to her control panel. ‘Some weather coming in by the looks of things.’
As the focus returned to the ship and their journey, Louis allowed himself to breathe – perhaps he hadn’t made as much of a mess of his interaction with Hannah Maynard as he’d thought.
Nobody else was commenting on his awkwardness or making any conjecture as to why she was in suite 70-69 on her own.
He must be overthinking the situation. Probably because he was so determined to get everything right on his maiden voyage as captain.
To do that, he needed to focus on his job, manoeuvre the Ballygowan from Southampton to the Azores – the first stop of the cruise – within three days, while avoiding bad sea conditions and remaining within their allocated shipping lane.
Following the plan, triple-checking everything, letting the rest of the crew entertain the passengers.
He needed to stay in his lane, just as the ship should – and although he wanted to impress everyone on board, crew and passengers alike, nobody would be the least bit impressed if he didn’t get them to St Lucia in time for Christmas.
All he had to do was shift the image of Hannah, frowning at his stupid comments, from his mind. Replace her with weather charts and shipping directives, and the myriad of unforeseen issues bound to crop up – even on a cruise as well planned as this one.
Plus, he had yet to acknowledge that his own father was on board. Priorities, Louis…
Which made it difficult to understand why he couldn’t seem to banish her from his mind.
Portus jumped down from his vantage point at the window, flicked his tail and stalked from the bridge, glancing at Louis as if to tell him not to mess anything else up while he was out of the room.
‘Being guilted by a cat,’ he muttered, taking his binoculars and scanning the skyline, for want of something better to do, his own frown making itself felt beneath the eyepieces as his train of thought wandered back to the reasons behind Hannah’s expression.