Chapter 39 #2
Rhys must have had the same thought because the two of them broke into a run. They clattered up the steps and into the hall, nearly tripping over each other in their haste.
But they were too late. Llywelyn’s prone form was stretched on a table and his daughter bent over him, weeping.
Several men stood nearby. One grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away, but she jerked out of his grasp and held on to her father.
“Get away from him, you English whoreson bastards!” she screamed.
Richard grabbed two fistfuls of the man’s surcoat and threw him against the wall. “Touch her again, and I will kill you,” he grated from between clenched teeth.
The man’s eyes went wide. He swallowed convulsively, his head jerking as he nodded. Richard shoved him away. He fell to the floor, then scrambled to his feet and hurried from the hall.
When Richard turned, Rhys was already at Gwen’s side.
“Rhys,” Gwen wailed. “Oh Rhys, look what they have done.” Blood stained her hands as she clutched her father’s lifeless body.
Rhys’s eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “I am sorry, Gwen. I should have been here. I should have stopped them.” His hand shook as he touched Llywelyn’s jaw then slipped down to cover Gwen’s hand where it clung to her father’s chest.
Gwen turned to bury her face against Rhys’s shoulder. “R-Richard?”
He went to her and gently pulled her up. Dear God, she was still pregnant. If he again saw the man who had handled her so roughly, he would kill him. “Yes, my love, I am here.”
She clung to him. He couldn’t stop himself from pressing kisses to her face, from tasting her tears, from learning again the texture of her hair.
She closed her eyes and buried her face against his chest. “You are safe, you are safe, you are safe…”
He stroked her hair. “Aye, I am safe.” Jesú, he’d come so close to never holding her again.
Her body shook with her sobs. She pushed away and his heart turned over at the pain written on her lovely features.
“H-he is dead, Richard. They killed him, k-killed my father—”
“Well, Dunsmore,” Edmund interrupted, stopping beside Richard and gesturing toward Llywelyn’s body. “We have gotten us a prize fit for a king, have we not?”
Richard could have killed him as Gwen’s gaze darted between them. She seized her lip between her teeth. “I do not understand,” she whispered.
He silently willed her not to even consider what he knew she must.
She took in his torn and dirty surcoat, his chain mail, his sword, and a look of dawning horror crossed her face. She shook her head vigorously. “Oh nay,” she moaned, “nay, tell me you did not lead them!”
Her fists tightened in his surcoat. “Tell me ’twas not you who did this, tell me ’twas not for revenge!”
He stiffened as if she’d slapped him. He knew he should answer immediately, reassure her, deny any involvement. But he couldn’t force the words out. How could she believe he would do this to her?
The answer came to him, twisting his heart with familiar bitterness. Because he was Gwalchddu. Run though he might, he would always be Black Hawk de Claiborne.
She stepped back, bumping into Rhys, her eyes never leaving his. “Oh my God, you got your revenge!”
Speak, goddamn you! his inner voice screamed.
“You said you would, and you did!”
Rhys gripped her arm. “Nay, Gwen—”
“No, Rhys,” Richard said, surprising himself with how calm he sounded when his heart was a dead weight inside him. “’Tis not necessary to explain. My wife always thinks the worst of me.”
Tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks, and she clutched her belly protectively. “I will never forgive you, never!”
Rhys wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Let me take you to your room, Gwen. You need to rest.”
“No, I cannot leave him,” she said, shaking him off and rushing to her father.
Those words stabbed through Richard like nothing else ever could. She could leave him, despite her promise, but she couldn’t leave her father.
“I won’t let them do anything to him,” Rhys said. “Come.”
She stared at him uncertainly, then allowed him to lead her away. The sound of her soft crying faded as they ascended the steps to the upper chambers, but it was still like a dagger twisting in Richard’s heart.
He stood, staring down at Llywelyn in a daze. The man who had given him Gwen had also taken her away.
Edmund pulled out his sword. Richard grabbed his arm as he raised it high. “Nay. Not here. I cannot stop you from taking his head when you are elsewhere, but if you do it in this castle with his daughter—my wife—I will send your head with it.”
Edmund resheathed the weapon. “Very well, my lord earl. It can wait,” he said grudgingly.
Richard caught the speculative look Edmund shot him. He knew the man wondered how the very pregnant wife of the Earl of Dunsmore came to be in an enemy castle, but he did not care to explain. Edward was the only man he need answer to.
“I need to send a messenger to the king,” Richard said. Dafydd would have moved by now, but Richard could still detail his strength and tactics.
Edmund motioned for a scribe. Richard dictated the message, then slumped onto a bench and stared at Llywelyn’s still form.
“I hated you for so long, old man, but ’twas not even you who did it,” Richard murmured. “Mayhap she is right for suspecting me. If I’d had the opportunity, I’m not certain I wouldn’t have killed you had I not known the truth.”