Villains in royal company (6)
I believe the answer is:
knaves
'villains' is the definition.
(I know this)
'royal company' is the wordplay.
'royal' becomes 'k' (abbreviation for king).
'company' becomes 'naves' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'k'+'naves'='KNAVES'
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for knaves that I've seen before include "Loons" , "Scoundrels" , "Four face cards bearing a picture of a young prince" , "Jacks (cards)" .)