“Did you ask him what he knows about the poacher?”
“He knows there is a poacher.” She forced herself not to squirm in her seat. Not wanting to confess her failure, she avoided looking him in the eye.
“What is it, my dear?”
“He found another arrow.”
“Another arrow?”
“I . . . I injured a stag and he got away with the arrow.”
“I see.”
Although her uncle normally was the picture of contentment and nothing ever seemed to bother him, now she saw concern, even worry, flicker across his face.
“Jorgen was angry about the poaching. He thinks this new poacher is the same one who killed his father four years ago.”
Rutger frowned. “That is not good.”
“I know.” Just hearing Rutger’s concern made her heart beat faster and a heaviness fill her chest. “We need to change the color of the feathers on my arrows. Perhaps we could dye them different colors. Then maybe he would think there was more than one poacher.”
“My dear, you must not become so upset. Breathe.” He demonstrated by taking in a big breath, then letting it out slowly. “Do it with me.”
She took in a deep breath . . . Then she saw by the glint in his eye and the upturn of his mouth that he was already seeing the humor in the situation. “This is not a matter to laugh about.”
“I will take care of it.” His half-amused expression softened. “I will make sure the boys make some new arrows with colorful feathers—perhaps green and brown ones that will not be so easily seen—and change the fletching on your old ones.”
“Thank you, but I have already asked them to do that.”
“Very well. The problem is solved.”
“I would not say it is solved.” Jorgen was very upset. But perhaps she had persuaded him to think it was not necessarily the same poacher who killed his father. “He brought two sacks full of hares that he and the gamekeepers had snared, and he gave them all to the children.”
“Does the margrave know?”
“He gave him permission.”
“So Jorgen is trying to impress you by showing charity to the children. Did he impress you?” He took a sip of wine from his goblet as he studied her over the rim.
She let her lips twist into a frown. “Jorgen is a good sort of man, even if he is the forester. I would not say he did it to impress me.”
“Oh, I think he must have. But why does he want you to think well of him? I very much fear he is in love with you, Odette.”
“Oh no. He is not the sort of man to fall in love with a woman he hardly knows.” She shook her head, blushing and raising her goblet to her lips. After she had taken a sip and swallowed, she said, “We are only friends.”
“Are you certain of that? Perhaps you do not know the forester’s heart . . . or your own.”
She frowned, wrinkling her forehead. “Why are you saying this?”
Heinke came in to refill his goblet, and he waited until she left. “My dear, I do not think you realize the effect you have on men. The fact that you are one and twenty and yet unmarried is a testament to my deference to your wishes and my ability to protect you. You are very beautiful, so beautiful that I have heard rumors around town that I have not found you a husband yet because I want you for myself.”
“That is vile and disgusting!” Odette set down her goblet and tried to control her breathing. “That is not true. Surely no one believes that.”
“My point is that Jorgen would have to be blind and insensible not to feel some attraction to you. And you should be careful not to fall in love with him. You could have any unmarried man in Thornbeck, and marriage is made more difficult when you are poor. I am simply trying to look out for what is best for you.”
Odette nodded and stared down at the table. She wanted love, but if she kept poaching, sooner or later Jorgen would find out. Could he love her then?
Perhaps she should do what Rutger wished and marry someone wealthy, like Mathis. It would certainly make her life easier.
12
ODETTE AWOKE WITH a start. A pale light was streaming in her window. Was that twilight—or dawn?
She sat up, blinking. That light was definitely morning, not night. What had happened? She did not remember hunting the night before. She had gone to take a nap but must have slept all night.
She had missed the hunt.
Jumping out of bed, she grabbed her clothes and began to get dressed. But she had nowhere to go.
Odette fell back onto the bed, then curled onto her side. Would the children go hungry today because she had not gone hunting last night? They would have the hares that Jorgen had brought to them. “Thank You, God, for providing the hares,” she whispered.