Gwen took a step back. Gareth knew she was going to turn and run and he couldn’t let her. Before she could grasp the latch, he was on his feet, his hand pressed to the door to stop her from opening it.
“Let me go!”
“No,” he said. “It was nearly five years ago, Gwen. You have to let me explain.”
Hywel had been crouching beside Enid’s body and now stood. “I’ll be leaving now.” With his elbow, he nudged Gwen closer to Gareth as he pulled open the door. Before he slipped through it, he shot an amused glance at Gareth. Hywel’s amusement was all very well and good. He was a known womanizer; Gareth, not so much.
Gwen stood with her head down and her arms wrapped around her midsection. After Hywel closed the door, she pressed her forehead into the wood.
God damn it! Why couldn’t he keep his big mouth shut? “Gwen—”
“Just tell me, Gareth. I’d rather you got it over with without feeling sorry for me. I’m not so naïve that I’m willing to close my eyes and let you make a fool of me.”
Gareth’s hand hovered above Gwen’s shoulder, but then he dropped it, deciding that he shouldn’t touch her just now. He glanced at Enid’s body, still supine on the floor, and would have laughed at the incongruity of it if laughter wouldn’t have made Gwen even sadder. For the sorrow in her voice was unmistakable and broke his heart.
“After I left Cadwaladr—and you—Cristina’s father was the first lord for whom I fought. Enid often visited Cristina in those days. It was known among the men that she was free with her attentions, and so I …” The last words came out in a rush but he couldn’t finish the sentence.
“You took her up on her offer,” Gwen said.
Gareth wanted to punch the wall. “Your father had turned me down for your hand, Gwen. I was disgraced.” The memory of those months tasted bitter in Gareth’s mouth, even these many years later. He’d been twenty-three when he’d left Cadwaladr’s service—seven years older than Gwen—and he’d thought his life was over. The real truth, which he surely wasn’t going to tell Gwen just now, was that Enid wasn’t the only woman who’d shared his bed after he’d left Gwen, just the first.
Gareth cleared his throat. “It meant nothing to either of us at the time. She paid attention to me for a few days at most. We both knew from the start she would move on to someone else. It would have meant nothing to either of us today if Enid hadn’t ended up dead.”
Gwen’s shoulders remained hunched.
“Gwen—”
“I knew you hadn’t been chaste since you left me. Or I should have known,” Gwen said. “I never wanted to think about it.”
“I’m sorry, Gwen,” Gareth said. “I’d take it back if I could, but I can’t. Would you have preferred that I hadn’t told you?”
Now, Gwen sighed. She turned around to face him, her back to the door. “And when it came out that you knew her and didn’t speak as Hywel did?” She shook her head.
Gareth let out the breath he’d been holding. Her sane response, now that she’d had time to think, was exactly why he’d told her.
Gwen lifted her hand as if she was going touch him, and then dropped it. “How much worse would it have been to have withheld the truth? You know what would have happened as well as I. Some would have wondered what else you were hiding, and might have speculated that you’d renewed your acquaintance with Enid yesterday. And then they’d go on to wonder if you’d killed her.”
It didn’t bear thinking on. He could have ended up in that cell again. Gareth looked down at the top of Gwen’s bowed head. “I am sorry, Gwen. More than I can say.”
Her head came up. “Were there other women I don’t know about?”
A tendril of fear curled in Gareth’s stomach. “Yes.” He kept his gaze steady on hers.
“Recently?”
Gareth took in a breath and let it out. “No.”
Gwen’s shoulders sagged. “Did you talk to Enid yesterday?”
They both glanced towards Enid’s body, and then away again. It was awkward to be discussing this here, but worse not to. He couldn’t let Gwen leave the room with the past hanging between them.
“No,” Gareth said. “I didn’t even know she was at Aber. Between our late arrival and the attack on the King, I spoke to few people other than you and Hywel. After you went to bed, I checked once more on our prisoner, who continues to claim that he remembers nothing else, and then I went to bed in the barracks.” He paused. “Alone.”
Gwen allowed Gareth to clasp her hand. “I believe you, Gareth. It’s just a hard tale to hear under these circumstances … And then there’s Hywel.”
“What about Hywel?” Gareth said.
“He knew her too.”
“He’s admitted it,” Gareth said.
“But by admitting that he knew her, is he admitting the easier truth, rather than a more difficult one that he’d like to remain hidden?” Gwen said.
Her words made Gareth suddenly wary. “Do you have a reason to suspect him of wrongdoing?”
Gwen lifted one shoulder and looked away. “I suppose it’s time to tell you, though the circumstances could hardly be worse.” She pushed off the door. “Then again, maybe it’s better to get all the bad news over with at once.”
Gareth was glad his misdeeds were no longer the topic of conversation, but her intense look worried him. “What is it? What do you know about Hywel that you haven’t told me?”
“It has to do with last summer.” Gwen grasped the lapels of Gareth’s coat, clenching the leather tightly in her fists. Did she fear he might run away before she’d finished?
Gareth’s stomach sank at what might be coming. “Are you about to tell me that you and Hywel were lovers?”
Gwen blinked. “What? Don’t be ridiculous!”
This time, Gareth wanted to punch the air in relief. He eased out the breath he’d been holding. He could hear anything now. The look of blank shock on Gwen’s face told him everything he needed to know. Neither she nor Hywel had lied to him about their relationship.
Gwen scoffed under her breath. “No. No. That isn’t it at all.” She shook her head like she was trying to clear it. “When you and Hywel rescued me from the Danes, Hywel handed me his knife so I could finish cutting through the ropes that bound me. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” Gareth said, hopelessly at sea. This wasn’t going where he’d thought it might—feared it might—and now didn’t have a clue as to where Gwen was leading him.
“The knife he gave me had a thin blade and a notch in the edge.”
Gareth’s jaw dropped. “Wh-what did you say?”
“The knife Hywel gave me was the one that killed Anarawd.”
If he hadn’t been listening closely, Gareth would have been sure he’d misheard her. “Why didn’t Hywel tell us he found the knife?”
“He didn’t find it, Gareth.” Gwen’s voice was gentle. “The knife was his all along.” Gwen gripped Gareth’s coat tighter, knowing him so well, knowing that he would have pulled away if she wasn’t holding on so tight.
“You’re saying that Hywel killed Anarawd?”
“He admitted it to me.”
“But what about Cadwaladr? He hired the Danes to kill Anarawd. We know that.”
“Yes, Cadwaladr was a traitor,” Gwen said. “He ordered the ambush of King Anarawd and his men but when the Danes failed to murder Anarawd, Hywel, who happened to be in the area, stepped in to finish what Cadwaladr had started.”
“How could he have—” Gareth couldn’t get the words out. He almost swallowed his tongue as he tried to force down the denial that rose into his throat.
“Hywel and several of his men tracked the original Danish party across Gwynedd. Hywel came upon the ambush just as you did—while it was in progress. You went for help; Hywel saw Anarawd run away and went after him.”
“Why?” Gareth couldn’t keep the anguish out of his voice.
“I really should let him tell you the rest,” Gwen said. “But he explained his reasons. Chief among them was that he’d seen Anarawd murder his own father during the fighting in Ceredigion seven years ago.”
Gareth ran a hand across his eyes. “I find this so hard to believe.” He loosened Gwen’s hands on his coat, reached for the stool behind him, and sat, his head in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” Gwen said. “If there was a way I could have told you sooner, I would have. I haven’t seen you …”
Gareth waved a hand to dismiss her apology. “It’s not your fault. But it explains the wary looks Hywel has directed at me since we returned to Aber. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done to displease him.”
“You haven’t done anything. It’s what he did,” Gwen said. “At the same time, he should have told you. He’s had months to do so.”
“But instead he left it to you. Unbelievable.” Gareth shook his head. And then against all expectation, he found laughter bubbling up in his chest.
“You find this funny?” Gwen said.
Gareth managed to get his amusement under control. He gestured to Enid’s body. “There’s a dead girl on the floor. My choice is to laugh or to cry.”
Even Gwen smiled at that.
“All right.” Gareth leaned back on the stool so his back touched the wall, clasped his hands behind his head, and stretched out his legs. “Because Hywel murdered Anarawd, you think that he might have murdered Enid?”
“If you’ve killed once …”
“Now, that is funny,” Gareth said. “You do realize that Hywel has killed far more than once and so have I? So have half the men here. More than half.”
“We just have to consider the possibility,” Gwen said. “If he lied to us once, he can lie to us again.”
“Not without feeling guilty about it,” Gareth said, “and having it show in his face. Because that’s what I’ve sensed from him, although I didn’t know it until now. Guilt.”
“I didn’t know Hywel was capable of feeling guilt,” Gwen said.
Gareth coughed a laugh. “He wouldn’t feel guilt for the murder, mind you. But for the lie. I imagine he feels Anarawd’s death quite justified.”
“That’s what he said.”
Gareth studied Enid’s body. “Would Hywel have paid to have his own father murdered?”
“He wasn’t here when the other incidents occurred,” Gwen said. “He could have orchestrated them, I suppose, but he was far away.”
“And why should he wish death upon his father?” Gareth said. “He would gain little from the loss of King Owain. It is Rhun, as the elding, who’d inherit the bulk of Gwynedd, for all that it will be split among every one of the sons.”
“In which case, do you think the attacks on King Owain, and Enid’s death, are related events?” Gwen said. “Absolving Hywel of the one would absolve him of the other.”
“From the first, I assumed it,” Gareth said. “Two murders, or near murders, within a few hours of each other have to be related, don’t they? But your tale of Hywel’s treachery does have me questioning that assumption.”
“Hywel took advantage of Cadwaladr’s duplicity to fulfill his own agenda,” Gwen said. “Might someone be doing that again, even if that someone isn’t Hywel?”
“Gah!” Gareth’s head hurt. All the while he’d been speaking with Gwen, his insides had been going around and around. Did he even care what Hywel had done? If Gareth had seen a son murder his father, he could imagine killing that son and covering it up too. Gareth couldn’t condone the lie, however, and it irked him to recall on what a merry chase Hywel had led them. At the same time, if Hywel had accepted fault, Cadwaladr would have gone free. That would not have been the preferred outcome.
Gwen had been watching Gareth’s face as he thought. “It’s hard to take in, isn’t it?” she said. “I remember sitting across the table from Hywel, listening to him tell me what he’d done, and all the while seeing my world come crashing down around me.”
“But it didn’t, did it?” Gareth said. “In the end, nothing has changed.”
“Nothing except my knowledge of Prince Hywel,” Gwen said.
“Every day, we grow a little older and wiser.” Gareth studied Gwen for a moment, taking in her loveliness. Her hair had come loose from her night braid, the ties on her dress weren’t threaded evenly, and one boot was unlaced. He would spend the rest of his life, striving to deserve her.
Gareth got to his feet and swept Gwen into his arms. “I love you, Gwen. I would never knowingly hurt you.”
“I know that.” To his enormous relief, she returned his embrace.
Then his eye caught Enid’s body yet again. He kissed Gwen’s forehead. “Can we talk about this later, though, when we’re not sharing a room with a dead girl?”