He sat at the table, where the servants were beginning to serve the evening meal. He still looked humble, but not as much as when she had confronted him at his storehouse.
“That was not my idea,” he said.
“Then it was Mathis’s.”
He hesitated. “He only did it because he loves you and was desperate to make you forget about Jorgen.”
Odette imagined herself slamming her fist on the table and accusing her uncle of lying. Of course he knew it was Mathis. But she restrained herself. After all, he was her uncle. Even now, he wasn’t demanding she marry Mathis, even though it would solve all his problems, and he would be well within his rights as her guardian to ask that she do so.
The servants brought in the bread and the main dish of fish and eel stew and then left the room. Even though she normally liked the dish, tonight she ignored the food. “Why have you not asked me to marry Mathis? Why allow him to carry out some elaborate scheme to make me dislike Jorgen? You could at least be honest now that I know everything.”
Rutger only met her gaze for a moment before looking down at his food. “As I said, that was Mathis’s idea. I had hoped you would see that he could solve all our problems and give you what you wanted—food for the children.”
“I thought I was providing food for the children.” The undercurrent of bitterness was in her voice again. “Besides that, Mathis cannot give me what I want.” Because I don’t love him.
“Do you think the forester can give you beautiful clothes and tutors and books? Mathis can. I understand Jorgen Hartman is a well-built, handsome man, but do not allow lust to rule your thinking.”
“Lust? You accuse me of lust?” Odette hoped he could see the revulsion on her face. “You may accuse me of many things rightfully—I am sometimes reckless and unthinking, and I am a lawbreaker, as you well know—but do you dare call me lustful?”
“Perhaps I overstated. But you fancy you are in love with him, do you not? For a man, it would be lust. For an inexperienced young woman like you, Odette, it is only infatuation. But please, for your sake, take care that you do not allow your infatuation and supposed love for this man to overcome your good sense. He is only a forester, after all, and he did kiss another girl. Whether he believed she was you or was only doing what men naturally do, I do not know, and neither do you.”
Odette felt her breath coming fast and heat rising into her cheeks. “After what you have done, do you dare try to cast Jorgen in a bad light?”
“I am only trying to help you see everything more objectively. Think of what is best for you and the children, Odette. Think of how you would feel if you threw yourself away on a man of low stature and then found out he was not the man you had thought he was.”
Odette kept her lips tightly sealed.
Rutger lifted his hands toward her, palms up. “I know you are angry. And I have probably lost all credibility with you, after what I did by taking the meat and selling it. You were right. It was and is despicable. But as your uncle, I have always cared about you and tried to take care of you. If you cannot bring yourself to marry Mathis, even though he is quite in love with you and is capable of giving you everything you could desire, I will try to understand. And if you truly have considered the cost of marrying Jorgen and still want to marry him, then I will not stop you.”
The cost of marrying Jorgen. He meant that the children would go hungry—as they had been for the last six months, thanks to him. And that Rutger would lose everything and be destitute. And that Odette would suddenly have a lifestyle far below what she had known for the past twelve years.
Odette stood up from the table. “I am not hungry. I think I will go up to my room now.”
Rutger’s face looked downcast. “Of course, my dear. Will you go out hunting tonight?”
“Yes. And I will deliver any meat I kill myself.”
There would be a full moon tonight, which would make her more visible to Jorgen if he was out looking for the poacher.
As she made her way up the steps, her mind flashed back to the dream she’d had the night before, of the angry stag wanting to rip her apart, no doubt for all the suffering she had caused him and the other deer in the forest.
She had to remember who she was hunting for. She must not be squeamish, must not allow herself to become weak now. She would not let them down.
The person she had depended on for twelve years had betrayed her. And yet, after all he had done for her, she couldn’t hate him. And now he needed her to marry Mathis.