Oh My, I Messed Up the Story

Chapter 108: The Wife Of A Traitor

This tiny woman who normally seemed so silly to Rosenia was now deadly serious. She wanted Sigmund gone. Had she realized how deeply he hated her and her husband for betraying him in favor of Franz?

It would make sense. Katie was supposed to be a political genius. Even the most basic player in the game of politics knew that rendering your enemies useless was important.

She had not interacted with Sigmund much yet she seemed to sense how dangerous he truly was. To continue living her peaceful life with her idiot husband she knew she would have to get rid of him.

Rosenia did want him gone and this would be such a simple thing to do without personally getting her hands dirty and yet "I will still be shamed as the wife of a traitor. I do not wish to spend my life locked in a corner of my brother's castle."

Katie raised an eyebrow. "That's your only objection?"

"You are the one who brought it up! Do not judge me. I have no affection for that man whatsoever," she said defensively.

The girl held her hands up in a gesture clearly meant to be placating. "No judgment here. I'm sure we can figure it out. A cover-up. The execution wouldn't be publicized; we could convince Franz to say that he died from an illness. Then you wouldn't be shamed at all."

It was tempting. Widows had more rights than single women did. She could return to a life of simplicity and luxury in the king's household without having to hide herself away or get married again.

Most women with titles tended to stay in their adopted countries when their husbands died, like the dowager queen, but Rosenia wasn't important enough for that to be necessary. She was the wife of a prince who had been cast aside.

Annalaias had only been her home for a few years. It would be perfectly acceptable to return to the land of her birth.

This was too good of a deal for her. She narrowed her eyes. "Why would you do that for me?"

"Because I feel sorry for you," Katie said honestly. "Do we have a deal or not?"

Rosenia thought about it. She could return home and nannies would be able to take care of her child for her. She would never want for anything again and both of them would be safe from Sigmund's wrath.

She saw no drawbacks to this plan. "Alright. But you should know he has not done anything as of yet. He has been too busy sulking."

Katie gave her the same grim smile as before. "I'm sure he'll have something figured out by the time court reconvenes. Just keep me posted."

"Keep you posted?" Rosenia asked in confusion. She had never heard of that phrase before.

"Ah, country slang. It means to let me know as soon as you find anything." Katie stood and walked away with a spring in her step at the thought of killing someone off. She really was such a strange woman.

With a sigh, Rosenia looked up at the cloudless blue sky. If this worked she would be out of here before winter hit. The thought filled her with warmth. Home. She could be going home.

===

Charles Lancaster was having a hard time focusing on the duties he needed to attend to at his estate. Ever since Prince Franz had been crowned king he had been boiling over with barely concealed rage.

They had been completely blindsided, first by that plan to introduce commoners into the court and then by the king's death. To make matters worse Sigmund did not do anything about that worthless third prince like he promised.

He had talked to the queen when he was still the crown prince, Charles was sure of it. But when he came back he was tight-lipped about what they had discussed and said the matter was closed for the time being. He would continue searching for concrete proof of Alpheus's treason on his own.

No progress had been made because he and Catherine stopped leaving the castle once the king died. Everything was essentially on lockdown while waiting on baited breath for the royal baby to be born.

Sigmund had been so furious when he found out it was a boy that he destroyed his office while Charles stood to the side and watched. He had never seen his friend fly into such a fury before and had been frozen in shock.

The members of the nobility who were firmly on Sigmund's side had been no match for the ones who cared more about continuing the royal bloodline. Charles had to deal with the aftermath of cleaning up the former crown prince's faction alone since Sigmund had become unhinged.

He knew that Franz never would have pulled it off without having the votes of all of those commoners. The nobles had still been somewhat divided about the issue.

It was completely obvious that that had been Katie's handiwork. If Charles had succeeded in marrying her and bringing her over to his side everything would have turned out differently.

When he saw her and her idiot husband beam at each other during Franz's coronation he had barely been able to contain himself. They had gotten what they wanted but what about him? What about representing his faction's interest now that their leader had gone off the deep end?

It would be impossible to pin treason on Alpheus now. Whatever he had been doing with those foreigners wasn't a problem in the new king's eyes. Charles was tempted to challenge him to a duel but he knew that if he won Catherine would never forgive him.

That was why he had wanted to get him killed off in a way no one could prevent. She would be more obedient that way.

He sighed. There were only a few weeks left before he would be heading back to the capital and he still had no idea what to do about the situation. There was always poisonbut there was no guarantee it would work with how heavy palace security had become after Franz took over.

He was a paranoid man and clearly believed Sigmund was going to try and do something to his child to get his position as crown prince back. If he was of sound mind, it sounded like the sort of thing he would do but right now he wasn't capable of doing anything.

Charles was disgusted. He had looked up to Sigmund for so long and he had become completely useless at the first obstacle in his path. He had backed the wrong horse.

If he had been on Franz's side from the beginningwould he have managed to win Catherine over? But who would have ever thought the second prince would end up king! That sort of jumping ahead in the line of succession rarely happened.

No, Charles had done the best he could for himself given the original situation. Now that it had changed he had to do better.