Jorgen rubbed a hand over his eyes and down his face, then heaved a sigh. “Odette, I never would have hurt you at all. If I had known it was you, I would not have shot a single arrow. But yes, I was trying to wound the poacher, not kill him.” Thinking how he might have killed Odette if his arrow had gone a few inches to the left made a cold sweat break out at his temples and on the back of his neck.
Odette nodded, looking contrite as she stared down at her hands. After a few moments, she said, “I have been away from home all night and nearly all day today. My uncle will be worried about me. Would it be possible for you to send word to him that I am well?”
Jorgen shook his head. Could she honestly be worried about her uncle? But she would be a cold person indeed not to care about her guardian and only living family member.
“I will go myself and tell him where you are. Odette? Do you think Rutger might harm you, thinking you might tell me or the margrave that he was behind the poaching and the black market?”
She inhaled a noisy breath of air, sitting up straighter. “No. No, my uncle would never harm me. But I know you must tell the margrave what we have done, and I don’t want you to feel bad about it. Go ahead and tell him. I do not want you to get in trouble because of me.”
A stab of pain went through his chest. He wanted to protect her, but it just wasn’t feasible. “I don’t have any choice but to tell him.”
She nodded.
He suddenly wanted to take her and run away, to go where the margrave would never find her. “I have to go.” He practically ran from the room.
He had to get away from her. He had to think without having her so near that she made him lose all perspective. The walk to her uncle’s house would give him time to clear his thoughts.
As soon as she heard Jorgen leave the house through the front door, Odette allowed the tears to slip down her cheeks. Of course he had to tell the margrave. Lord Thornbeck would be furious with him if he found out Jorgen had been hiding her at his own home when she was the poacher.
But the hurt look on his face had reminded her so much of her recurring dream. It was the same expression he’d had then—hurt and anger.
Odette wished Brother Philip were there so she could ask him what she should do. How could she get absolution for her sin? Even though she had justified her poaching by saying that God would want her to feed the poor, she knew what she had done was wrong. Seeing the pain in Jorgen’s face brought on her the full force of that truth. And since Rutger had been selling the meat instead of giving it to the children, the margrave would never believe she had been poaching to help the poor. Who would believe it? Did Jorgen even believe it? It seemed the height of folly that she had trusted Rutger so completely. She had been blindly loyal to him. Was she any different from Kathryn, blindly loyal to Agnes because she had helped Kathryn and her little brothers when no one else had?
Rutger had betrayed her, Agnes had betrayed Kathryn . . . And she had betrayed Jorgen.
Even though he was exhausted and had slept very little, Jorgen walked to Thornbeck and down the main street that led to the Marktplatz and Rutger Menkels’s house. Besides carrying Odette’s message to him, he had something he wanted to say to her uncle.
Rutger met him in the first-floor room. “Have you seen Odette?”
“My mother is taking care of her.” He said the words wryly, but he might not have answered him at all if he had not seen true concern in his eyes.
“What has happened? Is she ill?”
“No, she is injured.”
“Injured?”
“Odette wanted me to let you know she is safe and well. But I came here also to ask you why you would allow her to poach the margrave’s deer. How could you, her guardian, condone such a thing?”
His face went white. “So you have captured her.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes and blew out a breath. “She was doing it for the children. You do not know how determined she was to help them.”
“And then you sold the meat instead of letting her give it to the poor.”
“Did she tell you . . .? I never intended to do it. I was helping her by distributing it to the poor. But then everything went wrong. My ships and all their cargo were destroyed, and my caravan was beset by robbers. I lost everything. I was in debt and desperate. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but—”
“So Odette knew nothing about what you were doing?”
“Not until a few days ago. And she had no idea I was in debt. I did not want her to know.”
“Until Mathis offered to help you if you would convince Odette to marry him.”