“You must be Kathryn.” He fixed his gaze on the girl, who kept her head down and looked up at him through the hair hanging over her face. “I wanted to tell you that I have found your two brothers and you will be going to live on the farm where they are living.”
Kathryn lifted her face and stared at him.
“I have arranged everything. You will live in the house with the Schindler family and will do some light work for them in exchange for your food and other provisions.”
“My brothers? You found my brothers there?”
“Yes, and you will join them.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was hoarse.
“I can take you there now, if you wish. Then I will send one of my servants to bring your belongings to you.”
She nodded eagerly. Rutger helped her mount his mule, and he took the reins, walking beside her.
As they started off, Odette clasped her hands, smiling. “This is so wonderful. I could not have planned anything more perfect.”
Jorgen watched them ride away, and he sighed in relief. As Odette said, it had worked out perfectly. Kathryn would be able to stay with her brothers.
But he didn’t like how tired Odette seemed. She looked beautiful, as always, but her shoulders and eyelids drooped, and she didn’t speak as energetically with the children as she normally did.
When the children began to leave, Odette was smiling, but the dark smudges under her eyes made him wonder if she was sick.
“Odette, you seem tired. Are you well?”
She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it.
“You do look tired, Odette,” Anna said. “Have you not been sleeping?”
“Oh, I am not very tired. I am well. I . . .” Odette seemed to be considering what to say. “I have not been getting enough sleep. But I will try to sleep more tonight.”
Anna looked at her curiously. “Why are you not sleeping?”
Odette gazed beyond her friend and shrugged. “Sometimes I do not sleep well. It is naught to worry about. All is well. Shall we go?”
Jorgen could not push away the feeling that all was not well.
“Odette, I want you to sleep here tonight. You apparently aren’t sleeping well at home.”
They had gone back to Anna’s house to talk, and now they had just eaten supper and it was getting dark. Odette wanted to stay, but how could she?
“Jorgen was right. You look exhausted.”
Odette couldn’t stifle a yawn. She had to go out hunting tonight. Perhaps she could stay until the household fell asleep and then slip out. She could say she went home early because she couldn’t sleep when she wasn’t in her own bed.
“Of course I can stay the night.” Odette plastered on a smile.
Anna sent a servant girl to tell Rutger that she would be staying there for the night. “I just do not want you to go home when you seem so tired. I will give you something the nurse gives the children to help them sleep when they are sick. That will be just what you need.”
With Peter playing with Gunther before his bedtime and the nurse having just put baby Cristen to bed, Odette and Anna sat in the first-floor room talking.
“And you seem a little nervous too. Are you sad that Rutger doesn’t want you to marry Jorgen?”
Odette did not answer right away. Perhaps it would not hurt to admit the truth to Anna. “You must not tell anyone what I say.”
“I will not, of course. We always keep each other’s secrets.”
“I do like Jorgen.” She sighed. A tingle went down her arms as she imagined his face, his smile, his eyes, the way he looked when he spoke, how kind he was with the children and with her. She especially admired the way he had saved Kathryn. It was sweet and heroic. It reminded her a little bit of how Rutger had come and saved her from those people she was living with and toiling for.
Wasn’t she even more exhausted now that she was not slaving away or scrounging, but poaching deer to feed the poor? But that was different. She did that because she wanted to.
“You like Jorgen. Ja, go on,” Anna prompted her.
“Jorgen is . . .”
“Kind? Handsome? In love with you?”
“In love with me? I would not say that.”
“I have seen the way he looks at you sometimes. I believe I am justified in saying he loves you.”
“I think Kathryn is in love with him.”
“Of course she is. He saved her. She would hardly be human if she was not in love with him.”
“Perhaps he will marry her.”
Anna wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t think that is likely. She is a pretty girl, but Jorgen doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would want someone so young and timid.”