Chapter Nine
After that, they abandoned any idea of walking and went back up to Lord Thomas’s room. Rynn was so shaken she didn’t say a
word until they got there. Molly—Molly was dead. The coincidence was too great; her death had to be connected to the guns. The horror she was feeling must
have shown in her face because Lord Thomas had her sit in the big armchair in front of the fire and pulled a quilt from the
bed for her to wrap around herself. Then he rolled his own chair up so that he was facing her.
“Are you all right?” His eyes were dark with concern.
She nodded. It wasn’t true, but she was trying.
“I gather you knew the poor girl on the sofa?”
Rynn nodded again. Then, taking a deep, steadying breath, she said, “It’s Molly. Molly Kincaid. My friend. From the pub.”
He’d heard her talk about Molly, and the pub. Her promise to take him to visit both when he was up and on his feet again had
been one of the first incentives she’d dangled in front of him if he would just try.
“God, I’m sorry.” He reached for her hand, held it comfortingly. She realized how cold hers was only when he began lightly
chafing it. “You’re freezing. Can I get you some tea or something?”
By that he meant he’d ring the bell and send whoever appeared for some, she knew. Shrinking from the thought of anyone else seeing her before she’d recovered her composure, she shook her head.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“Do what?” His head was bent over her hand that, thanks to his ministrations, did indeed feel several degrees less icy. Returning
that one to her lap, he reached for her other one and began chafing it.
“Tell Colonel Pelly that I was with you last night.”
“Because when he asked where you were I thought you seemed afraid.”
The idea that Colonel Pelly might have thought that, too, appalled her. “You were behind me. You couldn’t possibly have seen
my expression.”
“It wasn’t your expression that gave you away. It was how you clenched your fists.”
He’d turned her hand over so that her palm was uppermost. Now he held her hand up so that she, too, was looking at her palm.
To her surprise, four red crescents from where her nails had dug into her skin were clearly visible. She remembered with dismay
how tightly her hands had fisted under Colonel Pelly’s questioning. A glance confirmed identical marks on her other hand.
“I was upset,” she said with what dignity she could summon. “Not afraid.”
“My mistake.” He ran a gentle finger over the marks. Instinctively she closed her fist to hide them. His head came up at that
and he gave her a considering look.
“I think you need help,” he said. “I can help you, if you’ll let me. Tell me what happened last night.”
For a moment, tempted, she hesitated. She did need help.
But he was, after all, a Brit, and a soldier to boot, and his loyalty to his country might outweigh their friendship.
And there were so many others involved: Donal, Seamus and Fergus, and Owen Maguire and his crew, too, and now Molly, poor Molly who was, so unbelievably, dead.
Telling him her secret would reveal their secrets, too.
How many times had she heard Granny say, “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead”?
For all their sakes, it was imperative that she keep what she knew to herself.
But she didn’t want to lie to him, either.
“I can’t,” she said.
His eyes searched hers. Then he made a face that told her that, however reluctantly, he accepted her answer.
“Whatever it is, however you’re involved, I’m on your side. Remember that.”
“I’ll remember,” she said.
Before any more could be said, a brisk rap on the door made her jump and him release her hand. Her heart knocked as he turned
his chair around and bade whoever it was to come in. To her relief, it was only Dr. Lowry come to check on his patient.
Dr. Lowry had finished his exam and was leaving when she felt she’d regained enough composure to ask if he’d seen Molly. He
said that he had, and, shaking his head, opined that it was a terrible thing.
“What happened to her?” Rynn asked one more time and steeled herself against the answer.
“She was beaten. Badly.”
“Beaten to death?” It was incomprehensible.
Dr. Lowry shook his head. “Not to death. What killed her was a gunshot wound.”
“She was shot?” Hit by mistake by the soldiers firing at the Merrow? Or, God forbid, by Seamus himself as he returned fire? But why, why, was she on the Strand?
“That she was. Took a bullet to the back. From a pistol from the look of the wound, although that’s up to the coroner to determine
for certain.”
Not a rifle, then. So not hit in the exchange of gunfire.
“Who would do such a thing?”
“If I were to give my opinion, I’d say she was running away from whoever beat her and he shot her.”
The horror of it clutched at Rynn’s heart.
“Colonel Pelly seems eager to ascertain the whereabouts of Seamus O’Reilly,” Dr. Lowry said. “I’m guessing that he’s the one
they’ll be blaming.”
“No—” Rynn began, then broke off abruptly. She couldn’t give Seamus the alibi he deserved without revealing how she knew that
whoever had killed Molly, it wasn’t he.
“That’s what I think, too, but the good colonel is not likely to take my word for it, or yours.” He cast a grim look at Lord
Thomas. “You’re leaving us at a good time, my lord. What with one thing and another, we’re sitting on a powder keg here, I’m
afraid. If you’re lucky, you’ll be gone before it explodes.”
Rynn was still trying to come to terms with what that meant for her and all of them who would be left behind when word came
that Paddy’s body had washed up with the tide.