Chapter 113

How to Tame My Beastly Husband — Chapter 113. Puppets (1)

Astute as she was, Celestine would know this. If she kept her mouth shut, then she would become Crown Princess without any problems. Instead, she was doing what she thought was right, despite all her fears. Because Celestine was not the kind of person that could live at the expense of someone else.

“Not at all,” she said. “This is the least I can do for you right now. But now that you know who the real culprit is, what will you do?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Annette replied seriously. “I don’t know how far I can go. It’s so shocking, I hardly know what to think.”

Sometimes ignorance was best. She hadn’t thought that King Selgratis would be the true enemy. At the moment, she missed her first life, when she had died in blissful ignorance.

Annette had been eight when she was officially named Crown Princess. She had gone so often to see Ludwig, it was inevitable that she would encounter his father, and King Selgratis had always smiled when he called her daughter in-law.

She still remembered the dry touch of his fingertips when he stroked her head or patted the back of her hand. Her relationship with her own father was distant, she had felt comforted by the King’s kindness.

But it had all been a lie, in the end.

The King had never intended to accept a Bavaria as his daughter-in-law. He must have feared that Allamand would use her to control Ludwig. And though this was not unreasonable, it still felt as if there were something more to it.

Annette bit her lip. Why hadn’t he just broken off the marriage, if that was the problem?

That had been the easy way out, and Selgratis hadn’t taken it. Perhaps because if he had openly rejected Annette, then he would have had to face her father. Allamande was not someone who would easily relinquish such an advantage. He would have insisted that his daughter was the best candidate for Crown Princess.

That meant the King had been planning her downfall almost from the moment she became a candidate for Crown Princess.

The thought was shocking.

“Are you all right?” Celestine asked anxiously, as Annette’s face went paler and paler. “You’re white.”

She approached as if she meant to hug Annette, thoughtless reassurance that revealed exactly how much her heart had changed. Though grateful for the gesture, Annette forced herself to smile.

“I’m fine, I just…have a lot to think about.”

“I know the feeling.” Celestine frowned. “Oh, I have such a headache! I just thought I was fortunate to become Crown Princess. What a mess it all is.”

And people called her a lucky woman, with an edge of sarcasm. A woman from a ruined marquisate, who had overcome Lady Annette Bavaria to become Crown Princess. To any watcher, it might have seemed all she had to do now was hold Ludwig’s hand and walk down a flowery path. Celestine rubbed her forehead.

“Do you know what angers me now, Lady Annette?”

“Annette, please. What is it that angers you, Celestine?”

Annette’s voice prickled with her own fury. The two women had thought themselves opposites, perhaps enemies, but found they were quite similar. They had both been puppets in the hands of the King. The thought disgusted Celestine.

“When I was chosen to replace you, I was worried,” she said, squeezing Annette’s hand. “Because it was you that was chosen originally, and then suddenly I was to fill your place? I was sure that neither the Prince or the King would ever accept it.”

And just as she expected, Prince Ludwig had refused her. He never said so aloud, or even implied it in more roundabout ways, but a woman would know instinctively what he was thinking. His whole body shouted that he wanted her out of his life. There was another shadow that lay over his heart, and everyone knew whose it was, even if Ludwig himself never said her name.

“But…when I first went to see his Majesty, after I was chosen, do you know what he said?”

“No.”

Annette’s attention focused on her. King Selgratis would hardly have confessed that he had framed Annette to get rid of her. Whatever it was, it was making Celestine’s face turn red, just at the memory.