My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 60

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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 060
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I was sprawled beneath the shade of a tree, lost in thought, when a cool sensation against my cheek made me flinch and lift my head.
“Oh, it’s cold.”
Claude had brought the water canteen he’d tied to his horse and held it out to me.
He spoke curtly, almost dismissively.
“Put it against your eyes.”
“Is it swollen badly?”
“Yes. Quite dreadfully.”
…….
I asked if it was swollen, and he answered that it looked dreadful.
Who even asked for that?
But Claude’s expression had grown noticeably rigid, so I accepted the canteen from him with an awkward smile.
“……Thank you. I’ll return it along with the handkerchief later.”
After pouring out my tears, a belated wave of guilt crashed over me.
Why had I done that? To weep like some pitiful thing in front of Claude, who’d brought me here out of kindness.
‘He must think I’m strange, surely.’
Feeling the need to salvage the moment, I added an excuse.
“I’m sorry. Old memories came back, and I lost myself for a moment.”
……
“But I truly am grateful for bringing me to this place. Truly.”
Claude’s golden eyes settled upon me calmly, taking me in.
After a gaze that stretched on for some time, his voice emerged, colored with doubt.
“I’m not certain what you’re thinking.”
The weight of meaning in those words made me close my mouth without meaning to.
“And the moment I look away, I feel as if you might vanish somewhere, which is why I keep looking back.”
“……I wouldn’t do that.”
“Are you certain?”
…….
I realized too late that a lie born from meager guilt could wound him far more deeply.
When I simply shook my head instead of answering with more falsehoods, Claude pressed his lips together.
An awkward silence settled between us.
“You mentioned wanting to raise Johen and Anmari here before, didn’t you?”
It was he who broke the stillness this time.
“I think it’s a good idea. As you can see, the people here are all honest and kind. But that applies to you as well.”
“……Are you suggesting I move here?”
“You won’t regret it. Not if you have no lingering attachment to your position in the Nobility.”
His golden eyes, calm and settled, fixed upon me.
“I have no attachment to such things. And Mother wouldn’t object either. But…….”
Unable to finish what I’d started to say, I managed to scrape together a weak excuse.
“I don’t know anyone here.”
“You have no friends in the Capital either, do you?”
“……That’s true, but.”
“On the other hand, Hope is here, and so am I. If you come, Romaine will follow, so you’d already have three friends.”
I found no further argument.
To escape the treacherous bog of this conversation, I forced open a desperate exit.
“You’re just trying to exploit me, aren’t you?”
…….
My sudden quip made Claude’s expression freeze in an instant.
But he eventually answered with a playful smile touching his lips.
“You’ve seen right through me?”
He had decided to yield to me.
“In any case, the offer is sincere. Since it’s a distant future anyway, take your time thinking it over.”
“I’ll think about it. Thank you for the offer.”
I never spoke the words that my future was already mortgaged to someone with horns, and our conversation ended there.
On the way back to the Estate, I traced the remnant taste lingering in my mouth and realized something.
Lingering attachment, it seems, tastes exactly like this.
* * *
Even in daylight, I muttered to myself as I gazed out the darkened window.
“The rain still hasn’t stopped.”
“That’s right.”
Ever since that day on the hill, rain had been falling steadily across the Western Territory.
As if the sky itself had split open, the downpour drenched the entire estate, leaving everything sodden and damp.
And today was the day we were meant to return to the Main Residence.
“The carriage will manage well enough, but if we’re to avoid the sections where landslides are a concern, we may need to add a bit more time to our journey than usual.”
“It can’t be helped. What about the children?”
“They’re still asleep, I imagine. Shall I wake them?”
“No. Let them sleep longer.”
I hadn’t told them I was leaving, and perhaps it would be gentler to slip away like this, to put distance between us while they dreamed.
But when Romaine and I finished our preparations and stepped out of the room, a familiar face was waiting for us.
“Hope.”
He hesitated, his expression heavy and drawn, before at last he spoke something entirely unexpected.
“I’m terribly sorry to say this, ma’am, but it appears that only the two of you will be returning to the Main Residence today.”
“What do you mean? What about Claude?”
“The lord, he…… that is to say…….”
What Hope told me was this:
With late spring’s rapeseed harvest drawing near and everyone on edge, the dike had finally given way under several days of torrential rain.
Though rapeseed is a hardy crop, it is peculiarly vulnerable to water—the roots rot away entirely.
So Claude had apparently been out since dawn yesterday, laboring in that muddy morass to repair the dike.
‘No wonder the estate felt so quiet.’
Hope continued, his face etched with concern.
“It will take at least a week just to rebuild the embankment and restore the fields. The trouble is that the harvest season comes right after that…….”
“So the work could stretch far longer than expected. I’m not troubled by it myself, but can he really afford to be away for that long?”
“I was planning to send word separately to Belladonna. For now, the situation is simply too urgent to allow for alternatives, and as for what comes after…… well, we’ll manage somehow.”
“Mm…….”
They seemed determined to secure time by any means necessary, protocol be damned.
Since it was beyond my reach to intervene, I quietly accepted Hope’s judgment and nodded.
Even as I tucked Claude’s freshly laundered handkerchief back into my pocket.
“I understand. Once I’m back at the Main Residence, I’ll explain the situation to Mother.”
“That would be an enormous help, thank you!”
“Then we’ll depart at once. Hope, you……. No, you don’t need to come.”
“Pardon? But I should at least escort you to the Teleport Gate—”
I shook my head at the flustered Hope.
“The road is rough, but it’s not dangerous. Besides, shouldn’t you have gone to help Claude long ago?”
At my words, Hope’s lips pressed tight, as if I’d struck a nerve.
But I harbored no resentment toward him. To worry over those who were sweating out their labor to repair the broken dike was only natural.
“Ugh, but the lord was so insistent that I…….”
After wrestling with himself for a long while, Hope finally yielded to my stubbornness and nodded.
“Very well. Please travel safely. And you too, Romaine.”
“Yes. Do take care of yourself, Hope.”
“See you later.”
And so Romaine and I climbed into the carriage.
The few servants remaining at the estate bid us farewell, their faces clouded with awkward remorse.
“Safe travels, ma’am!”
“Ma’am, please come back to us soon!”
When their figures had dwindled to specks in the distance, I withdrew my hand from the window.
A pang of worry surfaced in the depths of my chest.
‘I hope nothing goes wrong.’
Strange—I’d only been there a few days, yet already I’d grown attached.
Meanwhile, Romaine across from me seemed to have recalled how I’d suffered from motion sickness.
“Ma’am, wouldn’t it be wise to sleep during the journey to the portal? It will take more than half a day to get there.”
“Perhaps.”
My condition had already begun to deteriorate anyway, so I accepted her suggestion readily.
I rested my head against the carriage window and closed my eyes.
Sleep was slow to come, but I forced myself to breathe through the nausea, fighting toward oblivion.
After steadying my breath again and again, my consciousness gradually grew hazy.
“Mmmh…….”
I’ve always had sharp hearing.
Yet the dull thud that sounded outside and the clatter of urgent hoofbeats went unheard—likely drowned out by the torrential rain drumming against the carriage.
“Ma’am, ma’am!”
My eyelids fluttered as someone shook me urgently.
But before I could grasp the situation, a scream tore through the air.
“Ahhhhh—!!”
My eyes snapped open.
Yet before I could lift my head, a sharp blow struck the back of my skull.
Thwack—!
“My lady!!”
…And then darkness claimed me.

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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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