A door opened on the far side of the room. The baroness emerged from some inner chamber, a finger to her lips. “Shhh!” she said. “He’s got a headache, the poor lamb.”
With this enigmatic statement, she drew the door behind her gently shut and crossed the room, smiling sweetly at Felix as she came. She was a plump and rosy woman when her skin wasn’t powdered to look porcelain frail. She had changed from the sumptuous coronation garb into a frilly dressing gown buttoned to the throat, and her hair, unadorned by hairpieces and fake swatches, was thick, graying, and a little frizzy.
She was the sort of person from whom one would expect to receive warm cookies, not plots.
“He got quite a nasty knock on the head yesterday, and I’ve had to keep him trussed up in my wardrobe for fear he might let something slip,” the baroness said, just as though Felix understood a word of what she was saying. She sat down at the mighty desk and selected a perfume, which she proceeded to dab behind her ears. She did not look like a woman recently recovered from hysterics, no matter what the apothecary said.
“Excuse me,” Felix said, bowing. “The lady outside said you were waiting for me?”
“Why, yes,” said the baroness with another sweet, motherly smile. “I wanted to thank you for jumping on that guard before he could rescue my husband. I thought for a moment all was lost, but your quick thinking quite saved the day!”
Felix stared into that open, round, comfortable sort of face. “I knew it,” he said. “I knew you were in on it!”
“In on it?” said the baroness innocently. Then she laughed. “Oh, you mean the abduction! Why, of course. It was really mostly my doing, actually, since Prince Lionheart is rather uninformed these days; but I couldn’t very well kidnap the dear baron myself, so I’m just as happy Lionheart showed up when he did. He’s a good boy at heart. As are you, I’m sure. Oh!” She put a hand to her mouth, her eyes rounding with concern. Then she reached out and gently touched Felix’s bandaged wrist. “Did you hurt yourself, my dear? What a brave little duck you are!”
Brave little ducks don’t kill dragons, Felix thought, though he had the grace not to say it out loud. Instead, he said, “Why would you plot against your own husband? Don’t you want him to be king?”
“Oh no, certainly not,” said the baroness quickly. “Why would I want such a thing? Foxbrush is supposed to be king; he was dear Eldest Hawkeye’s choice. No one should gainsay the wishes of a dead man—even I know that—but people have a way of getting a little silly where crowns and kingdoms are concerned. But there,” she shrugged prettily and smiled again. “A spell up in the North Tower will set my dear baron right. Always does me a world of good when he sends me there during one of my little fits. Such a restful place, high above the noise of the rest of the house. It’ll clear his head, and when Prince Foxbrush returns, my dear baron will be the first to welcome him home. Him and my darling Daylily, of course.”
“I thought they were both murdered,” Felix said, somewhat tactlessly as the baroness’s sudden burst into tears proved. He stood by awkwardly as the poor baroness wept stormily into a perfume-scented handkerchief, wondering if he should summon one of her ladies. He’d even made two steps toward the door when the baroness caught his coattail.
“Wait,” she said. “I’m sorry. I have these moments now and then. I’m just a wee bit worried about my dear child, you see, and when people start saying dreadful things about murder and whatnot, it just . . . just . . . just . . .”
She was about to go off again. So Felix hastily knelt and took both her hands. Women were not within his realm of understanding or comfort. He’d been close with his sister, Una, but sisters are a different breed altogether and scarcely count as women. And of course, he was mad about Dame Imraldera, but that wasn’t the same at all.
Here was a woman, a real, strange, weepy woman in distress, and he, as the only man present, should do something about it, he knew. He simply didn’t know what.
“Please, baroness,” he said. “Why did you really want to see me?”
Tears still dampening her cheeks, the baroness smiled again. “Because you helped us earlier. You leapt like a tiger on that poor guardsman; gave him quite a shock, I’m sure. And as dear Sir Youngwood was giving me my restorative, I thought to myself, ‘That handsome young fellow would help us again.’ And we do need help, my dear prince Felix. We do need help.”