Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela MacColl Page B

the Baroness’s door. Without knocking, Nell entered the surprisingly small bedroom, laid the breakfast tray complete with eggs, sausages, liverwurst, and tomatoes on a table and opened the curtains to the narrow window. She winked at Liza as she withdrew.
    “Girl, bring the tray here,” the Baroness said from her narrow bed. The shelf hanging above her head on the wall overflowed with handmade dolls. From the corner of her eye, Liza recognized in each doll a past Queen of England.
    The room was as cold as Liza’s own and the damp mingled with the Baroness’s lilac-scented perfume. Liza wrinkled her nose, trying without success to suppress a sneeze.
    As if reading Liza’s mind, the Baroness said, “It is the fourth room assigned to me in as many years. Each room is smaller and worse than before. But Sir John is sorely mistaken if he thinks he can drive me away.” She smiled with satisfaction, as if her loyalty to the Princess was measured by her suffering.
    Liza didn’t know what to say, so she bobbed a quick curtsy.
    “So?” The Baroness was intent on her excavation of a boiled egg.
    “Baroness?” Liza asked.
    “What was the Duchess so upset about yesterday? Or did you forget my instructions?”
    Liza described the Duchess’s reaction to the broadsheet and how Sir John comforted her. The Baroness did not seem surprised by the liberties Sir John had taken with the Duchess.
    “Where is this newspaper?” the Baroness asked.
    Liza wracked her brain. What had the Duchess done with it? “I think the Duchess kept it,” she said.
    “Find it,” the Baroness ordered.
    “I will look for it,” Liza promised.
    The Baroness seemed satisfied, so Liza decided to hold back Sir John’s master plan to steal the throne. She’d keep the most valuable secrets to purchase the Princess’s gratitude.
    “Now, help me up!” barked the Baroness.
    Once she was upright, the Baroness shook off Liza’s help. Standing tall, she turned to face the wall, her back to Liza. Her plaits of gray hair hung down to her waist. She opened her arms wide.
    Is she praying?
    After a long moment, the Baroness said, “My dressing gown, Liza.”
    I missed my first cue.
    Liza hurried to help her put on the dressing gown, a thick gray flannel that appeared dull but was lined with soft astrakhan wool. The Baroness tightened the dressing gown belt and sat down at her battered vanity table.
    “My hair,” Baroness Lehzen ordered.
    Liza stepped forward and lifted one of the loose plaits of hair. They were heavy and smelled faintly of rancid grease. As Liza untied the rags, flakes of the Baroness’s scalp scattered on her shoulders. Liza gagged and the Baroness glared at her.
    “Excuse me, Baroness, it must have been something I ate,” Liza lied, taking deep breaths to stave off nausea. She concentrated on the work her fingers had to do, and tried to keep her thoughts from drifting to her mother’s golden hair.
    The braid completed to the Baroness’s satisfaction, Lehzen stood up, took off her dressing robe and then her nightdress. Liza found it easier to meet her black eyes than to look at her naked body.
    “My corset.” The Baroness pointed. Standing behind the Baroness, Liza fit the stiff fabric around the stomach and then moved to the front to fasten it around the Baroness’s sagging abdomen. Her face frozen, Liza forced her fingers to lace it up.
    “Tighter,” the Baroness said. “A woman is only as virtuous as her corset is unyielding.”
    Only because she is too uncomfortable to think about sinning!
    Liza pulled harder. She had performed this intimate service for her mother—but never had she realized how degrading it was to do it as a paid servant.
    “Tighter.”
    She pulled until the corset strings made deep painful creases in her fingers.
    “Enough,” snapped the Baroness. “You’re hurting me.”
    Holding back a sharp retort, Liza rubbed the welts on her hands. She muttered, “I’m sorry, Baroness.”
    “Tomorrow, I trust