The Unexpected Ally Read Online Free PDF Page B

with his right hand for
the frame of the door for support and settled himself into a
sitting position on the top step leading up to it. He let out a
sigh and leaned back against the door.
    “Gwen said Erik was strangled and drowned,”
Hywel said.
    “Stabbed, strangled, and drowned, actually.”
Gareth’s eyes stayed closed.
    “Always important to be thorough.”
    Gareth opened his eyes and gave Hywel a wry
look. “I wasn’t expecting a brush with death quite this soon after
my last one. I did promise Gwen I’d do better.”
    “Some things can’t be helped.”
    “Apparently not.” Gareth shook his head. “I
would have been dead if the men who attacked us had wanted to kill
me. Why didn’t they? They’re already into this for one murder.
What’s two more?” He leaned forward slightly so his weight was no
longer on the door. It wasn’t intuition—merely that he’d heard, as
Hywel had, the thudding of footsteps on the floor of the room
behind him. Then the door opened to reveal Gwen standing on the
threshold.
    She looked down at the top of Gareth’s head.
Even from that angle she would be able to see that he was soaked to
the skin. “You’re bleeding! Why? What happened? You were just
supposed to bring the body to the church!” She dropped to her knees
beside her husband.
    Gareth leaned his head against the frame of
the door, exhausted. “It turned out to be a harder task than
anticipated. I’m really glad you weren’t there.” He reached out and
took Gwen’s hand, stopping her from patting him down in a quest for
more wounds. “I’m all right, cariad .”
    “I’ll be the one who determines that!” Gwen
pried her fingers out of Gareth’s hand and moved them to his left
shoulder. She gingerly peeled back his shirt to inspect the damage.
“Do I dare ask if Erik’s body made it to the church?”
    “It didn’t,” Hywel said, deciding it was his
duty as Gareth’s lord to deflect her ire.
    Gwen stopped what she was doing and looked
up at him. “Really?”
    He nodded. “A group of men stole it. It’s
too early to say who they were or why they did it. Your husband is
wet because the perpetrators threw him into a stream beside the
road while they absconded with the body.”
    “Sweet Mary.” Gwen rested her forehead on
the side of Gareth’s head for a moment, and he reached out again to
grasp her hand as it rested gently on his chest.
    “I really am all right,” Gareth said. “I
took a hard fall, but I didn’t hit my head.”
    She sighed and went back to her
ministrations. “Did you see which way they went?”
    Gareth had closed his eyes again. After a
pause, when no response seemed forthcoming, Hywel answered for him,
“He didn’t.”
    “This is all very strange.” Gwen had
Gareth’s shirt off by now and was studying his wound. It might seem
an odd location to tend to him, but the light was better outside
now that it was daylight than it would be in the guesthouse common
room, which even on a bright day had only the one window and the
fireplace or candles to light it. “It doesn’t make sense that they
would steal the body now. Why didn’t they take it after he was
murdered? If they had done so in the first place, we never would
have known that Erik was dead or that a crime had been
committed.”
    Hywel moved under the eaves of the
guesthouse to get out of the rain, which had begun to fall with
some intensity again. “I’m afraid we don’t have enough information
to answer that question.” He eyed his captain. “Will he live?”
    “I suppose so.” Gwen looked up at Hywel.
“Would you mind helping me get him inside? He’s starting to
shiver.”
    They got Gareth to his feet, through the
doorway, and over to a low stool by the fire. As Gareth sat,
seemingly exhausted by even that short walk, his wet clothes
dripped water onto the floor, forming a puddle at his feet. The
fire was blazing in the hearth, however, and Hywel was glad to go
to it too with his hands out to warm