My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

"What am I even doing?"

Louise kept the question inside her head and maintained her smile.

Getting King Antonias’s attention had not been difficult. It had been almost insulting how little effort it took.

He had been drinking since the celebration began. The wine had softened his movements, reddened his cheeks, and made every thought passing through his head appear on his face before he could decide whether to say it aloud. His desire for attention had become worse with every glass.

Louise had only needed to praise him.

A kind word about his taste in wine. A few compliments. A suggestion that the court rarely appreciated how much a King had to endure.

Antonias had accepted every word eagerly.

He possessed the pride of a King without any of the presence that ought to have come with it. He wanted admiration, but he could not take it. He wanted women to look at him the way people looked at powerful men in stories, yet every glance he received seemed to be bought with rank, fear, or obligation.

Louise found him pathetic.

She understood why Kaliantha looked at him with that distant, frozen contempt.

Skargardia’s royal succession followed the bloodline, not the husband’s name. Kaliantha had been the only child of the previous monarchs. She had inherited the crown because it belonged to her by birth. Antonias ruled beside her, wore the title of King, and sat upon the throne, but everyone with sense knew where the true royal authority rested.

Perhaps that was why he behaved this way.

Kaliantha did not need him.

She was more beautiful than every woman Antonias tried to impress. She was cleverer than he was, more respected, and beyond the reach of his cheap flattery. He could not make her blush. He could not make her depend on him. He could not make her look at him with the admiration he thought he deserved.

So he sought easier women.

Or women he believed would be easier.

Louise kept one hand lightly around his arm as they walked through the palace corridor. The ballroom’s music had faded behind them, muffled by the doors and the lengthening distance. Their footsteps echoed over the pale marble floor.

Antonias was supposed to lead her to the west receiving room.

Louise doubted he remembered where it was.

He had passed one corridor that would have led there, turned in the opposite direction, and continued speaking about the Valeronne wine as though he had planned the detour. A pair of palace guards stood at the far end of the hall. They watched the King pass, then looked away immediately.

Neither of them would interfere.

No one interfered with Antonias when he acted like this.

That was how he had gotten away with it for so long.

Louise’s smile remained fixed.

At least Ulrich had time now.

She did not know what he intended to do with it. The idea of Ulrich taking Antonias’s place beside Kaliantha still sounded unreal. He had been so serious when he asked, so focused that he had barely seemed to understand the insult of the request.

Yet he had trusted her with something.

That mattered more than she wanted it to.

She only hoped he achieved whatever foolish, impossible objective had driven him to ask. If she had to endure Antonias’s wandering hands and drunken compliments for nothing, she would never forgive Ulrich.

"Gods," Antonias said, turning toward her with a loose grin. "When was the last time I saw you, Louise?"

"I believe it was two years ago, Your Majesty. At His Highness Albert’s installation as Crown Prince."

"Two years?" Antonias chuckled. "No. I would have remembered seeing you."

’Because my dear father made certain I stayed away from you.’

Louise swallowed the thought.

Her father pushed relentlessly for a politically useful marriage, but even Marquis Rommels had limits. He had made it clear that Louise was never to remain alone with Antonias, never to accept an invitation to his private rooms, and never to mistake royal attention for an honor.

Louise had understood the warning perfectly.

"The last time I saw you," Antonias continued, "you were still young. Pretty, of course, but young."

His eyes traveled over her in a way that made her skin crawl.

"Now you have grown into a truly beautiful woman."

His arm pressed against her chest.

Louise let out a light laugh and stepped half a pace away while keeping her fingers looped around his sleeve. If she released him completely, he might try to pull her closer again. If she moved too suddenly, he could take it as an insult.

She needed him drunk, distracted, and harmless.

"Oh my, Your Majesty is making me shy," she said.

Antonias’s smile widened.

"Am I?"

"You know you are."

"I do not think I hear enough honesty from beautiful women."

"That is because men often punish honesty when they receive it."

The King blinked at that, apparently considering the statement.

Then he laughed.

"You are clever."

"I try to be."

Antonias raised the glass he had been carrying since they left the dais.

It was nearly empty.

Louise glanced ahead.

A servant stood at the next corner with a tray of wine, waiting for some noble who had apparently forgotten to collect it. Two crystal decanters rested beside a row of filled glasses. Louise recognized the dark red bottle at once. It was stronger than the wine served in the ballroom.

Perfect.

"Your Majesty," she said, pointing toward the tray. "Is that the Valeronne vintage?"

Antonias looked where she indicated.

His eyes brightened.

"It is."

"I thought it would be kept in the royal cellars."

"It was." He grinned. "The servants brought it out after I requested more."

"Then I was right to be curious." Louise let admiration enter her voice. "Would Your Majesty allow me a taste?"

Antonias straightened as much as his drunkenness allowed.

"Of course."

He led her toward the servant, though his stride had begun to drift from side to side. The attendant looked uneasy as the King approached, but he lowered the tray at once.

Antonias took a fresh glass and held it toward Louise.

"Try it."

Louise accepted it, lifted it to her lips, and allowed the wine to touch her tongue without swallowing more than a drop.

"It is wonderful," she said. "But I think it needs a proper comparison."

"A comparison?"

"Your Majesty should taste it again as well. You had the earlier wine before this." She took the glass from his loose grip and set it aside. "This one is fresher."

Antonias watched her take another glass from the tray and offer it to him.

He accepted.

"Your father raised you well," he said.

"My father would be pleased to hear it."

Antonias drank deeply.

Louise watched the level in the glass lower.

He had already consumed enough tonight that the stronger wine would not take long to affect him. His steps had become unsteady. His voice was growing thicker. All she needed was to keep him moving away from the ballroom and ensure that a servant or guard remained nearby when he became too drunk to continue.

She looked down the corridor.

A door stood open farther ahead. Beyond it was a small antechamber, furnished with benches and a water basin for guests waiting to be admitted to private rooms.

It would do.

"Your Majesty," Louise said, placing a hand lightly against his sleeve again. "I believe there is a quieter place ahead. We can sit for a moment. I would like to hear about the ambassador who chose this wine."

’Until hopefully you pass out and I can go head back to the ballroom.’

Antonias gave her a pleased, drunken smile.

"I knew you wanted to know more."

"Of course I do."

"Then we should not waste time on useless discussion."

Antonias moved before Louise understood what he meant.

His hand closed around her arm and pulled her sharply toward the wall. Her back struck the cold stone hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs. The wineglass in her hand trembled, red liquid spilling over her fingers.

"Y—Your Majesty?"

"What is it?" Antonias asked.

He leaned toward her, his breath heavy with wine. Louise pressed one palm against his chest, forcing as much space as she could between them.

"Someone might see us."

"I am the King."

He laughed at her concern and threw his emptied glass aside.

It shattered across the marble tiles.

The sound rang through the corridor.

Antonias pushed closer again.

Louise’s stomach lurched.

The plan had gone wrong.

She had expected a drunken, vain man who could be flattered into wandering through the palace and drinking himself unconscious. She had not expected him to forget every boundary so completely. If he had been sober, would he truly have tried this in the open corridor of the Skargardian Keep?

She did not know.

Perhaps the wine had only removed the restraint he usually pretended to possess.

"I do not think this is a good idea, Your Majesty," Louise said.

Her smile was strained now. She pushed against his chest, but Antonias caught her wrist.

"Shush," he said. "I know you want this."

His fingers forced her arm against the wall.

Louise’s face went pale.

"Please—"

Antonias lowered his face toward her neck.

Then he was gone.

His body jerked away so suddenly that Louise stumbled forward from the wall. She looked up.

Ulrich stood behind Antonias, one hand locked in the back of the King’s embroidered collar. He had caught him by the scruff of the neck as though Antonias weighed nothing.

"Wh—what—"

Antonias tried to turn.

Ulrich did not allow it.

He drove Antonias’s face into the wall.

The impact echoed down the corridor.

Blood ran immediately from the King’s nose. Antonias crumpled against the stone, sliding down until he landed on the floor amid the broken glass. His eyes struggled to focus through the wine and the pain.

Ulrich’s figure blurred in front of him.

Even through the haze, Antonias recognized the expression on the his face.

Contempt.

Not the controlled disdain Ulrich displayed in court. Not the polite indifference he wore before him.

This was colder.

This was what Ulrich had been hiding every time Antonias spoke to him.