“They are very beautiful.” Odette touched a petal with her fingertip.
Mathis broke one off and held it out to her. “For you.”
“Thank you.” Odette brought the flower to her nose. “It smells wonderful.”
He led her to a fresco painted on the wall facing the courtyard, a scene of two lovers embracing in a garden of flowers.
“It is well done and looks quite real. The artist is very talented.”
“My mother loves color. Father commissioned the artist to come all the way from Heidelberg to paint it. My father loves my mother very much.” Mathis leaned closer. “I would like to make a love match when I marry. I do not care so much about a dowry, as long as the woman is able to love me, and I her.”
Odette placed her hand to her chest and cleared her throat. “That is very commendable.”
“I believe I could love you, Odette, the way my father loves my mother.” He moved even closer, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“Oh.” She leaned back. “Your feelings do you credit, and I thank you for the honor of expressing the thoughts of your heart to me, but—”
“Do you think you could love me, Odette?” His eyes were large and round, and he seemed to be holding his breath.
“I do not know. This is very sudden for me, and I am not as sure about my feelings as you seem to be.”
He nodded and backed away a few inches. “I understand. So does that mean you may feel . . . something for me? Perhaps?”
“I cannot tell you anything of my feelings, as I am unsure of them myself.” Jorgen’s face flashed through her mind like a bolt of lightning. But she could not be thinking of him. She cleared her throat again as she tried to clear her mind.
“I can give you time.” He touched her arm, staring into her eyes. “You are the most beautiful and sought-after maiden in all of Thornbeck. If you will promise to think of me, to consider me, I will wait for you.” The breathlessness of his voice seemed to prove his sincerity.
Odette couldn’t block the stirring inside her at the fervency in his manner, but she suspected it was more pity than anything else. “Very well. I promise to think of you.”
“As a possible husband?”
“Yes.” But even as she said the word, the stirring became more of a churning in her stomach.
The men who had been examining the pony were walking toward them. “I believe that is my uncle.” She was uncertain who the men were, but it was the first thing that came into her mind to say to distract Mathis. “We had better go back inside, I suppose.”
“Ja.” His tone seemed a bit deflated, but he smiled.
Mathis took her elbow, and they walked back toward the door while the men walked several feet behind them. When they reached the narrow corridor that led inside the house, Mathis whispered, “May I kiss you?”
Her heart began to beat so rapidly she felt dizzy. “Not tonight. I need time to think.”
As he led her the rest of the way inside, he said, “A maiden has a right to choose when she wishes to be kissed.”
Odette quickened her step as she heard the voices of the people again. She entered and went to stand beside Anna. Mathis did not join them.
She stayed near Peter and Anna the rest of the night. She spoke with other people, including a few that Rutger introduced her to, until he was ready to go home. Mathis kept his distance, only once bringing her a goblet of wine when he saw that she had misplaced hers when they had gone into the courtyard.
Rutger said his farewell to Mathis and his father, while Odette nodded politely to Mathis and allowed him to take her hand and lift it to his lips for a brief kiss.
Once they were on the street, she let out a long breath. She was not quite ready to tell Anna what had happened. She let her jumbled thoughts keep her company while Rutger chatted with Peter and Anna all the way home.
Odette stood at her upper-floor window. When she saw Brother Philip walking toward her home with a cloth-covered bundle hugged to his chest, she hurried down the stairs, holding up her skirts and taking the steps two at a time.
Rutger had sent a note to her monk–tutor offering his favorite treat to entice him to return. He had not been to tutor her since she had argued with him by quoting Scriptures. She guessed by the bundle in his arms that he must be bringing her a new book to read. Her heart beat fast at what it might be.
She opened the door for him herself and ushered him into the large open room. Then she pulled the table out from the wall and provided a stool for each of them.
“I brought the Old Testament books of First and Second Chronicles.” Brother Philip unwrapped the bundle and laid the parchments reverently on the table.