“Oh!” The baroness stared up at Lionheart, and her face, red from crying, went ghastly white. “Oh, he’ll kill you if he finds you here!”
She was on her feet in a moment, grabbing Lionheart’s hand and pulling him across the room. A great, floor-to-ceiling wardrobe stood against the wall, in which Queen Starflower had once stored documents of relative importance. The baroness flung it open now, revealing an array of crinolines and petticoats. “Quick, inside!” she whispered even as the baron rattled once more at the door.
Lionheart obeyed without a thought, climbing in behind a curtain of petticoats scratchy with lace (a style far too heavy for Southlands’ heat but all the rage among the courtly ladies nonetheless). “Give me the key, and hurry!” the baroness snapped, and once more Lionheart did as he was told. There was something altogether strange and a little horrifying about hearing such tones of command from the soft mouth of the baroness. He fished the key from his pocket and pressed it into her plump hand. “Now keep quiet as a wee mousy!” she hissed, shutting the wardrobe door in his face.
Lionheart put his eye to the crack between the doors and watched. The baroness bustled across the room, answering her husband’s calls in a fluttery voice. “Oh dear! Oh gracious! Oh, Lumé! I’ve misplaced the key, my love!”
“Do hurry, sweetest one,” said the baron from the other side, his voice just verging on the fringes of patience. Lionheart pondered the advantages of having everyone in the world assume one to be a complete fool. After all, he had spent about five years as a jester himself.
But the baroness is not so cunning, he thought. Or . . . is she?
The baroness opened the door at last and stood fanning herself with her handkerchief as her husband stormed into the room, scowling but unsuspecting.
“Oh my! What could have come over me?” she gasped. “I thought I’d put it on my little table, but it wasn’t—”
“Never mind, darling,” the baron growled. He wore gorgeous robes similar to but newer than the robes of office worn by Eldest Hawkeye himself. They were light and flowing but heavily embroidered after the fashion of Southlands, and the fibula pinning his cloak was shaped like a seated panther.
The emblem of the crown prince.
The baron moved to Queen Starflower’s desk and began riffling through one of the drawers. He looked over his shoulder, suddenly scowling as he took in his wife’s attire, a ruffled dressing gown tossed over several layers of petticoats and a corset. “You’re not clothed to come down. Have you rung for your ladies?”
“Oh no,” said the baroness with a heavy sigh and sank into a chair. She fanned herself still more and dabbed at her forehead. “I just don’t think I could face it tonight, beloved.” If a voice could be fluffy, hers was like duckling down. “Not with our dear girl still missing, and that dreadful Baron of Blackrock always makes such eyes at me, and I so dislike those barbarous foreigners from the north, and—”
Although the baron could boast not so much as a trace of beauty, at the moment he turned upon his wife he looked startlingly like Daylily, whose face always concealed such a storm of fury behind the most placid of masks.
“You aren’t coming down?” he asked.
“That’s what I’m telling you, dear,” the baroness replied with a twirl of her handkerchief. “I just can’t seem to find the will for it. And with tomorrow being what it is, I think it best if I go to bed early and get my beauty sleep—”
“You are my wife,” said the baron. “You are to be Queen of Southlands. You will attend me on this night of feasting, and every night I desire. You will support me.”
The baroness, seemingly oblivious to the daggers in his voice, sighed and put a hand to her forehead. “Oh, sweetest love, I just can’t seem to manage it! I do think it cruel that they’re putting up such a fuss and feasting when dear Hawkeye is scarcely cold in his grave. If our own Daylily were back already, then maybe . . .”
The baron’s cold fish eyes narrowed. “Daylily is not coming back.”
“How can you say that?” cried the baroness, sitting upright in her chair. “How can you say that, husband? Really, you are too cruel sometimes! Of course she’s coming back. Prince Foxbrush went to rescue her.”
“Prince Foxbrush is dead. How often must I tell you this?”
“Nonsense, he can’t be dead” was her reply. She settled back in her chair, her face all practical reason. “He’s gone to rescue our ducky, and you can’t expect heroism to happen overnight. He might even now be facing a dragon for her dear sake! How can you give up on them so easily?”
Middlecrescent ran a hand down his face, which was now more tired and vulnerable than Lionheart remembered ever seeing it. For the first time in his life, Lionheart wondered if even the baron might be human.