In Dublin's Fair City (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #6)

He had no idea how close. My legs wouldn’t obey me, and I had to be lifted onto the horse by the patient Johnnie. Cullen eased himself into the saddle with a hiss of pain. “Hold tightly around my waist,” he said. “I’ll try to keep the pace even for both of our sakes.”


Then he dug in his heels and we were off. I wanted to cling on tightly, but I was afraid of hurting Cullen's wound. I tried to grab onto the saddle instead, but there was really nothing to hold onto. It was like sitting on a plank on the ocean, which I’d done as a girl.

“You will not fall off,” I instructed myself.

Cullen took us through narrow back streets until city gave way to big houses set back from the road. Then he urged the horse into a canter. I stifled a cry as I was thrown up and down. I wanted to cling on tighter, and grabbed at Cullen's thigh as the one stable thing. After a while I began to feel the rhythm a bit better.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To a place where we can hide out for the night,” he said. “And after that?”

“We pray that there's a boat at the proper place and the proper time.”

The last lights of the city were left behind and only open country was ahead of us. It was almost too dark to see anything, but we appeared to be in a narrow lane that climbed and wound up a hillside.

“Are we heading for the sea?” I asked.

“No, we’re heading inland,” he called back.

“But I thought you said something about a boat.”

“I thought the roads to the water would be watched. They won’t suspect we’d go this way. We can drop down to the coast later.”

We rode on, passing the occasional hamlet with the warm light of lanterns glowing from windows, inviting with the promise of normal life and safety. Dogs barked from farmyards. At last we seemed to have reached an open area of heath. Cullen reined in the horse, and a great iron gate appeared ahead of us. It swung open when pushed, however, and we passed through, coming to a halt beside what seemed to be an old ruin.

“This is where we rest for a while,” he said. “Can you dismount by yourself? I don’t think I can help you.”

I slid down in what was probably a most undignified manner, then I helped Cullen. He groaned as his feet touched the ground and would have collapsed if I hadn’t been holding him.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Safe for the night,” he said, breathing heavily.

“Will there be someone who can do something for your wound?”

“No. There's nobody here but us.” He led the horse forward, loosened the saddle girth then tied the reins to a post. “You’ll have to make do like that until tomorrow, old chap.” He slapped the horse's side, then turned to me. “This way.”

The building that loomed out of the darkness looked like an old abbey, grim, windowless, made of rough stone. No welcoming lights shone from the windows. In fact, there were no lights to be seen, only the sigh of wind through dead bracken and bare branches. I shivered in the cold.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“It's an old chapel, no longer used.”

“Why here?”

“Because nobody will find us, and it's an easy ride to the ocean from here.”

He stumbled ahead of me to a side porch and turned a big iron knob on the door. It swung open with a creak. I followed him inside. It was pitch dark and smelled very old, musty, moldy, damp, and not at all appealing.

“I don’t like it here,” I said. “It has a bad feeling to it. Are you sure it's a chapel?”

“Decommissioned since the time of Henry VIII. And you’re right about the bad feeling. I believe the Hell-Fire Club used to meet here a hundred years ago.”

“Then for God's sake, let's go somewhere else.”

I was truly shivering now.

Cullen turned to face me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “My dear girl, perhaps you don’t realize, but all of Ireland will be out looking for us tonight and they’ll have orders to shoot to kill. There are no other places where we can rest safely until the time to meet the boat.”

“Then why is this one so safe?”

“Because it is on the Hyde-Borne's estate, and, as we know, Lord and Lady Ashburton are with their retinue in Dublin. That's why it's fine to leave Lord Ashburton's horse here. They’ll know where to find him. Now let's find a dry corner and maybe something to lie on.”

We blundered around, bumping into tables and benches, arranging several of the latter into a platform we could lie on.

“I wish we’d find some kind of light,” I groaned as my shin met a bench for the tenth time.

“We couldn’t risk using it if we did. We’re on a hilltop here. A light shining out from a disused chapel would certainly be noticed. And seeing that it has associations with the Hell-Fire Club, rumors would fly.”

“I’m cold and hungry and scared,” I said, then felt terrible about saying it. At least I didn’t have a bullet wound in my side. “If we had light I could maybe redress that wound.”

“The moon will be up later, if it doesn’t cloud over,” he said.

I spread my cloak on the benches.

“Go ahead and lie down,” I said. “I’ll keep watch.”