The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest by Melanie Dickerson Page B

same children who attended her reading lessons, who gazed up at her with gratitude. How could she let them down? Would she now become squeamish and weak because she had injured the deer instead of killing him and let the children starve?
    And then there was the evidence of her arrow that was possibly still in the deer, more evidence of her crime. But no one would ever know the arrow was hers.
    One of the young men held out his hand to her. She grasped it and let him help her to her feet. She motioned for them to follow her and headed in the opposite direction the big buck had gone.

    “My dear.” Rutger found Odette in the kitchen the next day gathering some bread, cheese, and dried fruit to break her fast after waking from sleep. “Young Mathis Papendorp is proving to be a valuable acquaintance. It seems his father has invited us to his home for a dinner three days hence. Are you not happy to be invited to the home of Thornbeck’s Burgomeister?”
    Odette tried to muster a smile. She had dreamed of Jorgen again, and this time he had clamped her in the pillory in the town center and marketplace. He had lifted the wooden board, made her put her head and hands inside, and secured it. She was trapped, unable to move. People came to laugh and point at her. They threw rotten fruit at her face. They even approached and smeared mud and filth in her hair.
    Her stomach clenched. The dream had seemed so real. Not only could she smell the rotten fruit and feel it hitting her face, she had felt the hard wooden pillory around her neck, choking her if she didn’t hold her head a certain way, the wood biting into herwrists. Jorgen seemed to have vanished after placing her there. And Rutger had stood nearby, his arms folded across his chest as he refused to help her.
    She had woken herself up, thrashing her head to the side to avoid getting hit with a rotten egg. After that, she had another dream, no better than the first. A large stag with red eyes tried to gore her with his antlers out of revenge for what she had done to his brothers.
    “Odette, are you unwell? You look pale.”
    “Only a little tired. I am well.” She needed to put the ghastly dreams out of her thoughts. She would ask her uncle about something else that had been bothering her. “I have been thinking about what Mathis said about the margrave at my birthday feast.”
    “Oh? What did he say?”
    “He said there were rumors that the margrave set the fire in Thornbeck Castle deliberately and that he had wanted his brother to die so he could be margrave.” And if it was true, if the man could do something so ruthless to his own brother, what might he do to her if she was caught poaching?
    “It is only a rumor.”
    “Do you think the rumor is true?”
    Rutger shrugged. “No one knows, I suppose. Although it does seem likely. With his brother out of the way, with no heir and no wife, his younger brother would inherit everything. Otherwise, the younger brother would never be anything more than the captain of his brother’s guard.”
    When thinking about it like that, it did seem likely.
    “But I was speaking to you about the Burgomeister inviting us to his home for dinner. I thought you would be excited about seeing Mathis again. You seemed to enjoy dancing with him at your birthday dinner.”
    “I do enjoy dancing.”
    “I could imagine him asking you to marry him soon.”
    Odette shook her head. “I do not believe I would ever marry Mathis.”
    A look of disappointment flickered across his face. “I suspected as much.”
    “I am sorry, Uncle Rutger. You have been so good to me, and I’m sure my marriage to Mathis could advance your interests.” She waited for him to confirm or deny the truth of her statement.
    He shrugged. “While it is true that Mathis and his father could help my interests a great deal, I would not have you marry against your will.”
    She felt a tinge of guilt. Was she being selfish? Some people would say she was—selfish, foolish,