My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

"I intend to become Ulrich’s Countess."

For several seconds, none of the sisters spoke.

Hermione stared at Louise as though the marquis’s daughter had calmly announced her intention to claim the throne. Esther’s lips parted, her hands clasped before her dress. Even Airam’s expression shifted slightly, though the change vanished before anyone could see it.

Louise merely smiled.

"R-Really?" Esther asked at last.

"I do." Louise nodded. "I have asked Ulrich many times already."

Hermione looked alarmed but tried to look calm.

"What did he say?"

"Well, surprisingly, he said he would think about it." Louise’s smile turned bright with satisfaction. "That is enormous progress. I am quite confident he will eventually accept."

Airam stared at her.

"How do you know that?"

"Because Ulrich is practical." Louise replied. "He does not make decisions lightly, especially decisions involving marriage. If he had no intention of considering it, he would have dismissed me immediately."

"That sounds more likely," Hermione muttered.

Louise heard her.

"Perhaps for anyone else, but Ulrich knows my family, my position, and what a marriage between our houses would mean. More importantly, he knows me."

Her expression became a little more subdued.

"There was Ashara, of course. For a long time, I thought she would be the only woman he could ever choose. But Ulrich told me that he has no intention of making Ashara his Countess."

Esther blinked.

"Why not, if Lord Ulrich loves her?"

Louise’s fingers paused against the fan.

"That is his answer to give, not mine."

Airam watched her with an unreadable face.

Hermione looked uncomfortable. "Why do you want to become Ulrich’s Countess? You are a marquis’s daughter. Should you not aim higher?"

Louise laughed softly.

"That is what love does to a person, Hermione. It makes titles less important than the person holding them."

"That sounds stupid," Airam said.

"It often is."

Louise did not seem offended. She looked almost amused by the answer.

"Still, I believe none of you understand what Ulrich is. His title tells people very little. Ulrich is powerful, wealthy, and respected, certainly, but that is only what the court can see. His potential, what he has accomplished already, and what he will accomplish in the future are far beyond a count’s title."

She looked toward Ulrich again, surprisingly in the company of Astrid.

She smiled faintly.

"He has always been like that. He walks into a room and makes people adjust themselves around him, even when they hate him for it."

"Lady Louise loved Lord Ulrich since you were our age?" Esther asked, a bit embarrassed.

"I did." Louise rested her cheek against one hand, remembering. "I fell for him the first time I saw him stand in front of me. That day he saved me."

Hermione’s eyebrows rose.

"He saved you?"

"From several boys who believed a marquis’s daughter was an easy target because I had come to the castle without guards." Louise’s eyes softened. "They had cornered me. Ulrich was smaller than all of them, and he had no reason to get involved. Yet he did."

"What did he do?" Esther asked.

"He told them to leave."

Hermione stared at her.

"That was it?"

"Not quite." Louise’s smile became mischievous. "They laughed at him. One of them pushed him."

Airam’s gaze narrowed in interest despite herself.

Louise looked pleased by the reaction.

"Ulrich broke his wrist."

Hermione and Esther were shocked to hear that.

"And you said he was shy?" Hermione asked.

"He was," Louise laughed. "You should have seen how regretful he was right after. He looked so adorable."

"Then?" Esther asked, even more curious with an admiring gaze and eager to learn more about Ulrich’s past.

"He was hurt afterward," Louise said. "One of them had struck him in the mouth. There was blood on his lip, and he acted as though it did not matter." She smiled to herself. "He told me I should stop crying because tears didn’t suit my pretty face."

"T—That cannot be Ulrich!" Hermione refused to accept the last words.

She couldn’t imagine Ulrich saying something so...something like that!

Louise laughed. "I am telling you, my dears. You are lucky."

"What?" Hermione asked.

"Ulrich cares for you."

Hermione stiffened..

"Perhaps not in the same way as Ashara, for example. You are not Ashara." Louise looked at Esther’s gown, at the silver clasp in Hermione’s hair, and then at Airam’s dark formal dress. "But he brought all three of you to the royal palace. He had clothing made for you. Jewelry. He gave you a place beside him in front of everyone who has spent centuries deciding witches belong in hidden villages or chains."

Esther lowered her gaze, her cheeks warming.

Hermione looked away as well.

Airam remained expressionless.

"I do not believe it," she said.

Louise turned toward her.

"He hates witches. There are no exceptions."

Esther looked at Airam with worry.

"Eldest sister..."

Louise did not answer immediately.

Her eyes rested on Airam’s face, no longer playful. When she spoke, her tone had lost its teasing lightness.

"Ulrich does hate witches," she said. "I do not think he can easily forget what one witch did to his life. His mother died because of a witch. Much of what he became began there."

Hermione’s fingers closed around the edge of the table.

"Then is he pretending to care for us?"

The question came out quieter than she intended.

Esther looked distressed before Louise even answered. She did not want to consider it. Ulrich had given them a home when they had nothing left. He had fed them, clothed them, taught them, and brought them with him even when the rest of Skargardia looked at their blood as a reason to fear them.

The possibility that it had all been false made her chest hurt.

"Ulrich pretending?" Louise shook her head. "I think pretending to respect the King and Crown Prince already takes all the patience he possesses. No, I doubt he pretends with you."

When she saw him dancing with each sister, she had discovered a new face of Ulrich she had never seen before.

Airam’s stare remained fixed on her.

"He bought dresses because he did not want us to embarrass him."

"Did he?"

"He said we needed proper clothing."

"He could have had simple dresses made," Louise replied. "Plain ones. Practical ones. He could have sent a servant to choose them. Instead, each of you has something suited to your own taste, am I wrong?"

"Y—yes. That is right!" Esther nodded so strongly that the small ornament in her hair trembled. "Lord Ulrich spent a lot of time and a lot of gold on us."

"Too much gold," Hermione added. "The dresses alone were ridiculous."

"It is fake," Airam said.

Hermione turned toward her with a tired sigh.

"Sister, what is wrong with you?"

Airam did not reply.

Every word Louise had said about Ulrich had been irritating enough. Esther and Hermione agreeing with her made it worse.

Ulrich did not care for them.

He could not.

If he did, Airam would have to admit that she had been wrong about him. Worse, she would have to admit that every sharp word she had thrown at him during the past two years had been aimed at a man who had, in his own impossible and unpleasant way, tried to give them a life beyond survival without any selfish thoughts to use them for his own goals.

She was not ready to admit that.

Louise watched her for a brief moment, her smile carrying a degree of understanding that Airam disliked immediately.

Airam was denying it too much for someone who felt nothing.

Louise decided not to press.

Instead, she turned to the younger two with renewed interest.

"Let us return to the important subject," she said. "What are your intentions toward Ulrich?"

Hermione blinked.

"Our intentions?"

"Do either of you intend to marry him someday?"

Hermione nearly sprang out of her chair.

"W-What?!"

Esther stopped moving entirely.

For a second, she only stared at Louise. Her thoughts seemed to have abandoned her somewhere between ’marry’ and ’Ulrich’.

Louise raised one brow.

"I assumed at least the two of you fancied him."

"I—I do not fancy anyone!" Hermione replied at once. "Least of all Ulrich!"

Her face turned as red as the carpet beneath their shoes as she said.

Esther lowered her eyes.

"I—I do not know," she said in a tiny voice. "I admire Lord Ulrich a lot..."

Louise stared at them.

Hermione’s denial came with every sign of a girl who had not examined the thought long enough to understand why it offended her so much. Esther, meanwhile, appeared genuinely uncertain. She admired Ulrich because he had saved them, housed them, taught them, and treated her like someone who belonged beside him. At her age, that admiration could remain simple. It could also become something else later.

Neither girl seemed prepared to distinguish the two.

"How adorable," Louise said.

Hermione’s eyes narrowed.

"D—Do not call us that!"

"Why not? You are."

Louise rested a hand against her chest.

"Once I become Countess Rubenhart, I would not object to Ulrich taking several wives. You may become his second, third, and fourth wives if you wish. I will remain the Countess, naturally."

"I—I do not want to be anyone’s wife!" Hermione said. "Especially not Ulrich’s!"

Esther’s face had become bright pink.

"I—I..." She looked at her lap, unable to finish.

The conversation was already too much fo her.

Airam did not react with the same visible embarrassment.

The thought was too absurd to warrant an answer.

Ulrich’s wife?

Her sisters, married to him?

Airam would rather put a knife through his throat than allow either of them to be handed over to any man, and Ulrich wasn’t a special case either.

It was more because she was scared that marriage, or even any other relationship, would separate her sisters from her than anything else, actually. There was also her mother’s own relationship, which didn’t turn out well either, making Airam even more wary.

"Hm. Suit yourselves," Louise said, laughing softly.

She had teased them enough.

She found all three girls adorable, even Airam with her open hostility.

"Louise."

The voice came from behind them.

Every head turned.

Ulrich stood a few steps away as calm as ever, and unreadable as ever.

Hermione froze.

Esther froze even harder.

Their faces had already been flushed; now neither knew where to look. Airam’s eyes moved immediately to him, suspicion returning before the surprise had fully left her expression.

Ulrich’s face remained blank.

He had heard enough of Louise’s absurd remarks to understand the subject of the conversation. He had no wish to know more. For his own sanity, he decided to treat the last several minutes as though they had not occurred.