The Fallen Princess Read Free

she no
longer needed to keep it.
    “Are you all right?” He kissed her
temple.
    “I have lost count of the number of people
who have asked me that this morning,” Gwen said. That wasn’t
entirely true; in fact, she’d kept a careful count. Gareth was the
third.
    “You didn’t answer my question,” Gareth
said, but he must have decided that if she could talk back to him,
she really was fine, because he released her and crouched in Gwen’s
place beside the dead woman.
    While Gwen related what she’d discovered so
far, Gareth went over the body as she had. Hywel, on the other
hand, once he dismissed Adda, stood chewing on his lower lip, his
arms folded across his chest and every line of his body revealing
his tension and unhappiness. Gwen had assumed that the strange
state of the body and the length of time since her death would make
it difficult to identify the woman quickly, but the prince’s
expression said otherwise.
    “Do you know her?” Gwen said.
    Hywel breathed deeply. “I don’t want to; I
shouldn’t be able to.”
    Gareth looked up from his examination. “My
lord?”
    Hywel didn’t answer. He seemed to be
struggling with himself somehow.
    Gwen stepped closer, looking at him with
some concern. “Whoever she is, we’re here to help, like we always
are.”
    “After all these years, I can’t believe
she’s dead.” Hywel scrubbed at his hair with one hand, his gaze
never leaving the body.
    “Who’s dead, my lord?” Gareth said.
    “My cousin, Tegwen,” Hywel said.

Chapter Two
    Gareth
     
    G areth looked from
Hywel to the body and back again. “This is your cousin? How can
that be?”
    Gwen was staring open-mouthed at Hywel.
“But—but—Tegwen ran away. We all know that she ran away!”
    Hywel shook his head, sadness and regret in
his face. “It seems we might have been wrong about that, Gwen.”
Then he looked at Gareth and said, “My uncle, Cadwallon, was her
father. He never had any sons, and Tegwen was his only child.”
    Gareth straightened from his crouch and
stepped close to his lord to ensure that none of the onlookers
could overhear him. “I know who Tegwen was, my lord, but she’s been
missing these five years. Are you suggesting that she didn’t run
away with a Dane as we all thought but has been dead this whole
time?”
    “I can only tell you what I see.” Hywel
gestured helplessly to the body. “That’s Tegwen. I’d swear to
it.”
    “How could she have ended up here?” Gwen
stood with her hand to her mouth. She seemed unable to look away
from the dead woman, so Gareth stepped past Hywel to stand beside
her, his hand resting gently at the small of her back.
    Gareth couldn’t blame the two of them for
being shocked. This was the last thing he wanted to see today too.
From the head wound, this was murder, and even if it happened a
long time ago, it couldn’t be ignored. Neither King Owain nor Hywel
would allow it. For Gareth’s part, he was loath to spend the short
time he had with Gwen working on a murder investigation,
particularly one involving a beloved member of the royal house of
Gwynedd.
    Tegwen’s disappearance five years ago had
been dramatic enough to have become legend. Gareth had heard the
stories and couldn’t blame the people for reveling in its
retelling. Who wouldn’t enjoy a tale of a young princess who defied
her family and ran away with a handsome Dane? The fact that Tegwen
had left her husband and daughters behind was usually (and
conveniently) forgotten.
    Gareth had heard a version of the story in
the great hall at Aber just last night, set to music and much
embellished, with the names changed and an added mythological
element that included a dragon. The singer hadn’t been Meilyr or
Gwalchmai, Gwen’s father and brother, and as Gareth had heard this
version before, he hadn’t paid much attention. He’d been with Gwen
at the time, and they’d had eyes and ears only for each other.
    Neither King Owain nor his guests were going
to enjoy