My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 16

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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My Husband Lives in a Painting · Episode 16
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A fortnight had passed since my visit to the Agnus Orphanage.
The Mansion, its gloomy funeral vestiges swept away and spring’s essence seeping through its halls, bustled with preparations for the coming Imperial Banquet.
Belladonna remained in seclusion, but according to word Romaine had brought, she too had commissioned an Evening Gown for the banquet.
And now that the Confinement Order on Claude had been lifted, he was said to be learning the family’s affairs, as though filling the void his brother had left.
While everyone else moved toward their own tomorrows, I—shuttered away in the Art Studio—finally completed a single painting.
“……You said you’d never studied Painting, didn’t you?”
When I showed the work to Camille, those were the first words he spoke.
“No, I haven’t. Is that strange……?”
“…….”
In truth, what lay before him was merely a copy from reality. The real painting existed elsewhere, outside this painted world.
Yet even so—as though he stood before a work that breathed with life itself—he soon knitted his brow sharply.
“Ob. Are you actually a genius?”
“What?”
“To have never studied—look at your composition, your color sense…… Everything’s flawless.”
‘Is this some new form of mockery?’
Yet Camille seemed genuinely serious.
No trace of falsehood lingered in his expression as he scanned the painting with wonder, exclamations tumbling from his lips.
“Remarkable. You really are the woman I chose.”
“Why must you go quite so far……”
It was then, feeling embarrassed and nervously biting my lip, that he spoke again.
“I want to kiss you right now.”
“…….”
Whenever my heart began to soften, he unfailingly shattered the mood.
Camille, wearing a crafty smile, cleared his throat as if to change the subject.
“But tell me—what wind blew this way?”
“What do you mean?”
“The painting. You spent days insisting you couldn’t do it.”
“Ah.”
At his words, I crossed my arms as though lost in thought.
Yet I couldn’t find an adequate answer. Theory and technique still didn’t exist in my mind.
But one truth—just one—I felt clearly, in my very skin.
‘I need certainty to paint.’
And now, I had it.
“Those men asked if I wanted to play hide-and-seek. But they told my sister that a big box would be a perfect place to hide. As soon as she climbed inside, they shut the lid and carried the whole thing away. That’s the last thing I saw.”
A conviction that Gail—Gail of the Pistachio Household—must harbor something rotten beneath the surface.
That suspicion had become the driving force behind each brushstroke.
“……I simply had Inspiration, so I painted.”
“Is that so? You’re the type who paints well only when Inspiration strikes. Isn’t that what they call a genius?”
“Please don’t flatter me like that. It’s only an imitation.”
I explained to Camille about meeting Johen at the Agnus Orphanage.
“Ob. For someone with such a cold expression, you’re surprisingly sentimental.”
“Does that make me seem foolish?”
“Not at all.”
A faint blush crept across Camille’s cheeks.
He drew toward me as though pulled by a magnet, grasped my auburn hair, and left a small kiss upon it.
“I like that side of you.”
“…….”
“It’s only by harboring weakness that the light beyond shines all the clearer.”
Smack.
After his lips withdrew, his gaze upon me was deeply enticing.
But when I reminded myself that he was a monster who coveted souls, the warmth that had kindled faded at once, and composure returned.
“Camille.”
“I understand. I won’t touch you.”
He seemed to have learned that I disliked contact with others—just as my husband had.
“……So, what happens next?”
“Hmm?”
“After I send this painting anonymously. Do you have a plan for what comes after?”
I tilted my head lightly and turned my gaze toward the painting.
“Ah, right. My turn now.”
Camille nodded briefly, gestured for me to follow, and turned to walk ahead.
His figure crossing the hillside shimmered like a mirage in the midday heat.
“While you’ve been painting, I’ve been rather busy myself.”
“Busy?”
“Mm.”
A playful anticipation flickered across Camille’s face as his pace quickened.
“I’ve prepared a gift for you. I’m certain you’ll love it.”
My gaze swept slowly across the interior of the cottage as we stepped inside, then halted abruptly at one unfamiliar sight.
There stood another door—one I’d never seen before.
Camille stopped directly in front of it.
“Come on, Ob. Your hand.”
……
“Whether you like it or not, this time you have no choice. You might get lost otherwise.”
I reluctantly placed my hand on his extended palm.
As he guided my hand to the doorknob, I felt a smooth surface that contrasted sharply with the weathered wood.
I pushed the door open, and beyond a strange tension lay a vast sunflower field.
……!
“Seeing it in person is far more beautiful, isn’t it?”
Sunflower-covered hills stretched endlessly beyond the horizon, their pale gold interrupted sharply by a brilliant blue sky.
‘This place…….’
Completed over two weeks of labor,
……it was the inside of my other painting.
“Ha. That expression is adorable.”
“How did you……?”
“Hmm?”
Camille turned back to face my question, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a smile.
In contrast to my poorly concealed bewilderment, his cheeks flushed as though savoring the present moment.
“Of course—the power of love.”
Behind that impudent expression, I could almost see a fox’s tail swishing into view.
3. Money Grows in the Sunflower Field
Claude was making a genuine effort to follow Belladonna’s instruction to avoid crossing paths with her inside the house.
He kept to the annex, handling all three meals there, and cast no shadow near the garden she frequented.
Yet as the family’s representative, certain duties were unavoidable—such as receiving reports on the movements of the household members.
“Say it again. That woman, she did what?”
“That woman? My lord, please, do watch your language…….”
“Tell me. Where did she send it?”
Hope flinched and pressed a finger to his lips, but Claude seemed indifferent.
Hope exhaled deeply, retrieved his spectacles after a long absence, and shifted his gaze back to the papers in his hand.
“So…….”
The report that had reached Claude early that morning from the knight guarding the Mansion was as follows:
—Ob Ortega had sent a gift to someone.
“She moved earlier than usual, and we happened to discover it. It was almost mistaken for the changing of the guard—no one would have noticed otherwise.”
“She deliberately chose that time, then.”
“A witness saw a rectangular, flat object at the scene. Since it was wrapped, we cannot be certain of its contents, but considering the lady’s interest in painting…….”
“She sent a painting?”
“Most likely.”
Clean reasoning. Accurate reporting.
The composed gaze visible behind Hope’s spectacles was sufficient explanation for why he had been selected as Claude’s closest aide.
Claude stroked his chin in silence, then spoke again after a brief pause.
“Did you confirm where she sent it?”
“I found that postman fellow and sweetened him with a few silver coins. He talks readily enough. He said it was sent to the Pistachio Count’s Household.”
“The Pistachio Count’s Household?”
“Yes. They’re the owners of one of the largest trading companies in the Capital. Quite wealthy, and I hear they attended this exhibition, though you didn’t notice them?”
“No. Wasn’t interested.”
“Tsk, establishing connections with such influential figures pays real dividends—ow!”
Claude gave Hope’s head a light tap as his mouth began to run away with him, then sank back into deep thought.
Ob Ortega. The wife of his dead brother, Camille Ortega.
‘I thought she was Belladonna’s chosen pawn, given how directly she’d selected her as a daughter-in-law……but that doesn’t seem to be it.’
The woman, whose true nature lay hidden beneath that cold exterior, had seemed impossible to categorize from the moment he saw her at the exhibition. Yet watching her freeze simply because their hands had touched briefly, he’d wondered if she was simply timid after all.
‘But this time, you sent the Painting to a completely different man?’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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