The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest (A Medieval Fairy Tale #1)(9)

So the old gamekeeper raised him but was not his father? Jorgen’s look turned even more hostile, and Mathis added, “And now here we are, dancing in the town square with beautiful maidens on this Midsummer night.”

“Were you good students?” Odette asked.

Mathis turned his head to one side. “I was a good student.”

Jorgen snorted.

Mathis laughed. “Very well. I was not a good student, nor was I well behaved. I wanted to be running in the sunshine and playing games. Jorgen was a much more attentive student than I.”

Anna, who had been standing nearby listening, spoke up. “I was not a good student, either, though my mother forced me to attend the girls’ school. Odette is quite a scholar, however.” She nodded proudly at Odette. “She has a tutor, a monk who comes two days every week to teach her to read and write in Latin and French.”

They all turned their attention to Odette. She shrugged. “My uncle humors me, even though he doesn’t understand why I love to study. I enjoy learning languages and . . . other things.” She decided not to reveal why she had not attended the town school for girls with Anna—or that Brother Philip was teaching her theology. He would only teach her theology if she vowed not to reveal it.

“Shall we dance some more?” Peter, who stood beside his wife, urged them all back toward the dancing and music. He could not know how frightened Odette was of the man she had felt such an attraction to only minutes before, frightened of what he could and would do to her if he discovered she was poaching the margrave’s deer. Just thinking of him delivering her up to be thrown into the margrave’s dungeon made her skin prickle.

She and Jorgen danced the next song together, and the next and the next. Perhaps she should have excused herself and danced with someone else, but Mathis did not return. The longer she danced with Jorgen, the more she was able to enjoy it and forget that he was the forester.

In fact, they danced until the Minnesingers began to play closer to the bonfire, now lit and starting to roar at the other end. They agreed they did not wish to join the drunken merrymaking around the fire. Jorgen kept hold of her hand a bit longer than was necessary. His touch made her heart flutter.

She caught her breath. How could she be foolish about this man she had just met? Had she forgotten what he could do to her? She must be a lack wit.

Uncle Rutger came toward them. “What a merry party you four make, dancing and laughing. Jorgen, you must come to our home for Odette’s birthday feast in two nights. You will be most welcome. Peter and Anna will be there as well.”

Oh, dear heavenly saints. Uncle Rutger must not know Jorgen was the forester.

Jorgen consented to come, and after the details were conveyed of the time and location of their house, Jorgen turned to Odette. “Until then.”

Would he kiss her hand? But he only smiled, bowed, and walked away.

As Peter and Uncle Rutger escorted Anna and Odette home, Odette couldn’t help but wonder what the reaction of Peter, Anna, and the handsome young forester would be if they ever discovered that she was poaching the margrave’s deer and giving the meat to the poor. The fact that Jorgen’s adoptive father, the old gamekeeper, was shot and killed by a poacher a few years ago would make Jorgen hate her.

Her heart constricted painfully in her chest. There was only one thing to do: never get caught.





4





JORGEN WALKED CAREFULLY through the thick undergrowth in the margrave’s game park. He was sure the thicket where he had found the twin fawns was nearby. Curious to see if the twins were both thriving, he was also looking for signs of wolves and wild boar. None had been seen in Thornbeck Forest for many years, but it was always possible that they would wander in from the wilder areas nearby looking for food. The wild boar’s favorite tree nuts grew here, and a baby deer would be easy prey for a wolf.

As he examined the undergrowth, the events of the night before were not far from his mind. He had danced with fair maidens before, but Odette was different. She was graceful and beautiful, but there was something in her eyes and in the things she said, an intelligence and a boldness that belied her quiet demeanor. He had been pleased—and surprised—to have been invited to her home for dinner.

If only Odette’s uncle wasn’t quite so rich.

When they were boys, Mathis Papendorp and Ulrich Schinkel, now the margrave’s chancellor, had never let Jorgen forget that he was not as wealthy as they were. And now, to find that Odette had attracted the attention of Mathis . . . It seemed a bad omen. Mathis probably seemed the perfect person to marry someone like Odette.

Jorgen wanted to believe that the look he had seen in Odette’s eyes and her manner toward him proved that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. He had believed he did see a preference in her reluctance to leave his side. But even if it were so, would she marry a forester?

Still, he remembered one particular moment when Odette had met his eye with such a sweet smile it had made his heart trip over itself. The memory of that smile warmed him so much, he halted. He had forgotten why he was there. Oh yes. The fawns.

As he pushed some brush aside, something on the ground caught his eye. He bent to look closer, then picked it up. An arrow.

The arrow did not appear to have been lying there long. It did not resemble the margrave’s arrows, which were all made by the assistant gamekeepers with a distinctive feather at the butt, which they dyed bright red in order to be able to recover them. This arrow’s fletching was snow white. Besides that, the margrave never went hunting without Jorgen, and he had not been hunting in weeks.