Jorgen sighed. “Forgive me. I know it sounds strange. I was actually . . .” His face turned a little red. He cleared his throat. “I do not normally go to The Red House. It isn’t somewhere I would ever”—he made a horizontal slicing motion with his hand—“ever go. I only went there to investigate something for the margrave.”
Odette raised her brows. What could the margrave want him to investigate at The Red House? “I thought your job was to take care of Thornbeck Forest and catch poachers. The margrave does know what The Red House is, does he not?”
“Of course.” Jorgen took a deep breath and let it out. “You see, as strange as it sounds, I was investigating the poachers.”
Should she believe him? After all, she had never been to The Red House, and she was the poacher he was looking for. Wasn’t she?
He cleared his throat again and spoke quietly. “There is a black market of poached deer meat being sold at the back of The Red House. I am trying to discover who is involved.”
But that could not be. Odette forced herself not to speak as she thought this through. Was someone else poaching the margrave’s deer? She had never encountered anyone else while she was hunting in the forest. How could someone be selling the poacher’s meat? It was impossible since she was the poacher.
She must concentrate on what Jorgen was saying. “Go on. So you went to The Red House to find out about the black market. What happened then?”
He looked down at his hands clasped in front of him on the table. “While I was there, I encountered a young maiden.” He held up one hand, still not looking Odette in the eye. “I did nothing to her, I vow to you. I was only there to get information.”
“I believe you.” He had such a look of embarrassment, she could not help but believe him.
“Thank you. So, this girl was much too young to be in a place like that, doing what . . . what she was supposed to be doing there. I told her I would take her to a safe place, that she did not have to stay there, and she came with me.”
“They just let you leave with her?”
“No.” He ran his hand through his hair, ruffling the curls at his temple. “I helped her sneak out.”
“Is that how you got that bruise on your cheek?”
He nodded.
“And that cut on your lip?”
“But you should have seen what I did to him.” The look on his face was something between pride and humor.
“He looked worse than you?”
He shrugged. “You could say that.”
She laughed, but her heart tripped over itself at the thought of Jorgen rescuing this girl. “How old is she?”
“Fourteen.”
“Dear heavenly saints!” Odette pressed a hand to her stomach. She had forgotten to eat while he was talking, and now the two bites of pasty in her stomach roiled as if they might come back up.
“I took her home. She spent the night there last night, but now she is crying and says she should leave. She says she will taint our house, and she is afraid that now that she has not paid her debt to Agnes, she will do something bad to her little brothers.”
“Agnes? Her little brothers?”
“Agnes is the woman at The Red House who helped find her little brothers a home when their mother died. She said if Kathryn—that’s the fourteen-year-old maiden—would work for her, she would find them a home.”
“No.” Odette pounded her fist on the table. “We must not let her think she has to give in to this terrible woman.”
“I will have to find her brothers, or she will go look for them herself.”
“Do you know where they are? I will go get them!” Odette rose from her seat. “How dare that woman do such a thing to helpless children? We should have her thrown in the pillory or locked in the dungeon.”
“We must have evidence first, Odette. If we want her to be stopped, we must keep our heads and find evidence that she has broken the law. I am not sure that we have proof she has violated any laws yet, and we do not know where Kathryn’s little brothers are.”
“Of course. Still, how could anyone do such a thing to a fourteen-year-old?”
“Why don’t you sit down and eat your breakfast. Then you can come with me to talk to her.” The half grin on his face made her wish he was as rich as Mathis Papendorp.
Three young orphans were in need, and Jorgen wanted her assistance in helping them. She didn’t want to think about the mayor’s son.
14
ODETTE DID AS Jorgen suggested and ate her food. Soon after, they were walking toward the gate closest to Thornbeck Forest and to the gamekeeper’s cottage. Jorgen led her through a well-worn path—a path she avoided at night so as not to leave footprints.