Chapter Eight #2
not a fresh death; her slim, pale arms curved stiffly away from her body, while her exposed flesh was already turning gray.
Severe bruising marred her face.
“Molly.” The shattering realization that the poor lifeless creature was someone she knew, her friend, hit her like a brick, stopping her in her tracks once again.
It made the room swim, made her go weak at the knees.
She tottered sideways, braced herself with a hand on the lamp table at the end of the sofa, and registered blood staining the canvas beneath the body before tearing her eyes away from the terrible sight.
Striving to catch her breath, she looked at the trio of men who, she discovered, watched her intently. “Dear God, what happened
to her?”
“Excellent. I was told you would know her, and it appears you do.” Colonel Pelly’s voice was ripe with satisfaction. Then,
glancing past her, he snapped, “A chair for Miss Carmichael.”
One was brought by a soldier, and, thankful to do so, Rynn sat.
“Can you confirm the deceased’s identity for us, please?” Colonel Pelly stood over her. Rynn hadn’t even been aware that he’d
moved. Instead of looking up at him, or across at Molly, she looked down at her hands that were clenched in her lap. Her ears
rang . . .
“Molly Kincaid,” she said.
“And you know her how?”
“She’s a friend.” It was all she could do to talk. Her throat felt tight.
“When did you last see her?”
“On Christmas Eve.” When Molly had told her about the guns. Dear Lord, she needed air . . .
“And where was that?”
“At Brennan’s. In Bundoran. She works—worked—there.” Her voice cracked as she realized she needed to refer to Molly in the
past tense now.
“What did you talk about?”
Molly had taken her aside, whispering her warning about Seamus and the guns.
The accompanying thrill of fear as she remembered that went a long way toward clearing Rynn’s head.
Horribly conscious of Colonel Pelly’s eyes on her, she did a lightning-fast review of the scene.
The pub had been dark, crowded, noisy—anyone might have seen them with their heads together, but had anyone overheard what was said?
“Just woman talk. Christmas.”
“Do you know of any reason why she would be out on the Strand last night?”
“No.” Had Molly gone down to the beach to warn the men, too? Or to meet them?
What other reason could there be? Rynn’s heart thumped. Hands clenching in her lap, she looked up at Pelly, then, fleetingly,
at the other two men. “What happened to her?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine, Miss Carmichael.” As Colonel Pelly spoke, the third man turned into the light, and
she recognized him as one of the local constables, Titus O’Shea. He knew her, too, of course. Just as everybody thereabouts
knew each other.
“Do you know Seamus O’Reilly?” Colonel Pelly asked.
Rynn’s stomach clenched. This was about the guns. He already knew that she knew Seamus. Even if she hadn’t been sure that Constable O’Shea would have told
him, she would have known it from his tone.
“I do,” she said.
“And Donal O’Reilly?”
“I do,” she said again, even as her heart sank. “Why are you asking?”
Instead of answering her question, he said, “You are, in fact, Donal O’Reilly’s sweetheart. Are you not?”
“I am.” Because as far as anyone in that room knew, that was still true.
“When did you last see them? The O’Reillys?”
“I saw Donal yesterday. And Seamus, that would be three or four days ago, I can’t be quite sure.
” A truthful answer, if she ignored last night.
She was still quietly panicking. It was clear that Pelly knew what Donal and Seamus had done.
Of course he did; hadn’t Maguire said their supplier, Haney, had been captured?
It was less clear what else he knew. Did he know about Fergus and Paddy?
Did he know about Maguire and the Reaper or, God forbid, about her?
She felt her palms grow damp and tried not to think about what he might be able to read in her
face. Tried not to think that her life might depend on exactly what he knew—and how well she lied.
“Where are they, Miss Carmichael?” Another change in tone. A hint of steel had crept in.
“Right now? Probably getting ready for the Wren Day celebration.” Wren Day celebrations, in which everyone took to the streets
to parade about in straw costumes and fancy dress, were part of the St. Stephen’s Day tradition, and that was what they would be doing if—
Calculating wildly, she tried to work out how things would be if last night hadn’t happened. If Paddy’s body hadn’t yet been
found, Colonel Pelly would have no reason to think that Donal and Seamus were anything other than alive and well. Thus she
herself would have no reason to think anything was amiss with them, either. If, in fact, Haney had been taken, and talked,
which the Brits had very effective methods of making someone do, efforts were probably underway at this very moment to find
them, and that was why Colonel Pelly was questioning her. It was, therefore, quite possible that he did not suspect her of anything except
knowing the men involved. Even as the knot in her stomach eased a bit, she saw a way to escape the interview.
“Oh, my. Oh, no. Seamus—he doesn’t know about Molly. Oh, he’ll be devastated! He—has someone gone to tell him? And Molly’s
family?” Martialing all her resources, she stood up. “I must go—”
“Sit down, Miss Carmichael.” Colonel Pelly’s voice was sharp.
She was instantly reminded of how much authority he wielded, how much power he and his kind had over her and all her countrymen.
Here, as always, it was the oppressors and the oppressed.
“We haven’t finished yet. Where were you last night? ”
She sat. Not so much because he ordered her to, but first because her knees felt wobbly, and second because it gave her an
excuse to duck her head while she frantically tried to work out the safest possible answer. It was all she could do to not
wet her lips. Did he know? What did he know? Just imagining the possibilities left her petrified. Please God, don’t let it show.
“She was with me.” Wheels silent on the carpet, Lord Thomas’s chair rolled up beside her as he answered the question for her.
She was so glad to see him, so thankful to have Colonel Pelly’s attention distracted, that the hands she’d unconsciously fisted
in her lap relaxed, and she threw him the smallest of grateful smiles. Thin, pale and not at all physically imposing in his
chair, he wasn’t looking at her, but was rather regarding Colonel Pelly with the kind of cool superiority that she was accustomed
to seeing directed at herself and her countrymen from the despised Ascendancy, as the locals called the British aristocrats
who owned the big houses that they only occasionally visited. His manner was at odds with his youth, but as Colonel Pelly’s
expression changed, she was reminded that Lord Thomas was the son of a rich and powerful man. A man, moreover, who was known
to be a close friend of the British prime minister, David Lloyd George.
“With you, Lord Thomas?” Colonel Pelly asked.
“Miss Carmichael is my nurse, and last night I was quite ill. She was with me through the night. And this morning finds me
still ill, and still in urgent need of her services, so if this interview is at an end I will take her away with me so that
she can provide them.”
Colonel Pelly frowned. “I have more questions—”
“I’m sure you can find another time to ask them. Or even someone else to give you the answers. But as my father has sent for me to rejoin him shortly and I must be well enough to travel, I know you won’t wish to deprive me of my nurse when I so sorely need her.”
“No,” Colonel Pelly said after the briefest of pauses. “I don’t wish to do that.” He looked at Rynn. “Thank you for your help,
Miss Carmichael.”
Getting to her feet, Rynn inclined her head in acknowledgment. Then she took a firm grip on the handles of Lord Thomas’s chair
and pushed him out of the room.