My Husband Lives Inside a Painting Chapter 13

“At the banquet?”

Nod, nod.

She cautiously nodded and continued explaining in a calm voice.

“That day, I saw him arguing with the Duke.”

“Tell me more.”

“Gail, I mean, he kept arguing with the Duke as if he were demanding an explanation. It seemed to be something related to money, but… I couldn’t hear the details. Anyway, the Duke got terribly angry.”

“Camille got angry?”

A dazed sensation washed over me, as though someone had struck me hard on the back of the head.

Camille was a man who had never once gotten angry with me, no matter the situation. It was precisely because of that that everyone called him the Angel of Ortega.

If he had gotten angry enough to show it, then it must have been about something serious.

“Did that Pistachio bastard do something shady?”

Camille, who had been listening quietly, asked without hesitation.

“Who knows?”

“Or did he borrow money and refuse to pay it back? Why, you said the Camille from your previous life was apparently a pushover.”

“……”

I glared at Camille at the casual jab directed at his former self.

But I couldn’t readily argue with him.

Because the one who had ultimately kept such people close and believed them to be friends was Camille from my previous life.

“Anyway, well. Not a bad choice for the first scapegoat.”

Scapegoat?

He had a bad habit of choosing ominous words.

With a loud snap, Camille closed the newspaper and stood up, stretching.

“All right, then. Shall we get started in earnest? But before that, Orb.”

“Yes.”

“Draw me one picture. It’s for a gift.”

“…What?”

He said it so casually that it was almost as if he were asking me to hand over some money I had hidden away.

I blinked at Camille, who looked as though he knew nothing, and dropped a bombshell on him.

“I can’t draw.”

At that moment, a strange silence fell.

Uncharacteristically flustered, Camille asked again.

“…You’re a painter.”

“I’m not.”

“What?”

“Yes?”

Our gazes went back and forth, both filled with question marks.

In an atmosphere that felt like some third-rate comedy routine, Camille pressed a hand to his forehead as though he were dizzy amid the awkward silence.

“Orb, you’re not joking, right? I’m a little confused right now…”

That was exactly what I wanted to say.

I was an art student. No, to be precise, I was merely a prospective university student who had an acceptance letter from an art college in her hands. I hadn’t even attended the entrance ceremony, let alone taken a major course.

Other than that, I had never properly held a paintbrush in my life. I had visited free art exhibitions quite a few times, but the only things I had ever drawn myself were scribbles I had absentmindedly made with a mechanical pencil in the corners of my textbooks.

“Then how did I draw it?”

“Well, that…”

A miracle.

There was no other way to explain it.

“…That makes no sense.”

Muttering those words, Camille began pacing restlessly around the room. He looked deeply troubled at a glance.

After walking around for quite some time, he finally stopped, planted his hands on his hips, and let out a deep sigh.

“I’m sorry to say this after promising that I’d take care of everything, but the truth is, I’m bound to your painting, so I can’t move around however I want.”

“It’s the same reason you can’t leave the painting, right?”

“Exactly. So if I want to meet anyone, I need a medium, but…”

His explanation was vague, so I couldn’t understand everything. Still, it seemed that he absolutely needed my drawings in order to use his abilities.

After thinking for a while, I finally came up with a solution.

“Should I try drinking alcohol?”

“What?”

“I painted this picture while drinking wine, too. About two bottles.”

Why, there were famous artists who claimed they needed alcohol before inspiration would come to them.

Maybe I was one of those people?

But the response I received was unexpected.

“No.”

“Huh?”

“Alcohol isn’t good for you. You’re already so thin, what are you doing drinking?”

Camille continued speaking with an utterly matter-of-fact expression.

“If you’re going to drink, do it when I’m around, and during the day.”

“……”

“It’s a rule. You can’t break it. Understood?”

He went on to say something else, but I couldn’t hear the rest.

A scene from the past suddenly blocked my vision.

“No, no. You can’t. Alcohol isn’t good for you.”

“But unlike you, I’m an adult. I’m not particularly weak to alcohol, either, and—”

“Still, you can’t. Why don’t you drink with me later instead? If possible… during the day.”

A vague memory surfaced.

Camille within it had said exactly the same thing as he was saying now.

“It’s a rule. You can’t break it.”

“…You’re only a year younger than me, what gives you the right?”

“My lady, what did you say?”

“Nothing.”

…Why was this man saying exactly the same things he had said back then?

I looked at Camille with bewilderment at the strange sense of déjà vu.

But he didn’t notice my gaze and was muttering to himself.

“No wonder that box I drew earlier was so cute…”

His wavering gaze finally settled when Camille, having finished thinking, opened his mouth again.

“Then let’s start with some practice first.”

“…Ah, yes?”

“What were you distracted by? Hmm? With me right here.”

He playfully poked my cheek and smiled brightly. The skin where his fingertip touched felt especially hot.

Watching me make an awkward face, he spoke again.

“Let’s practice drawing straight lines first. It’s okay if it takes a while. All right?”

“……”

He gently admonished me as though he were dealing with a child.

 

***

 

“…I want to tear it all up.”

Faced with a disastrous drawing that was practically an assault on the optic nerve, my head began to throb.

I had worked myself to the bone every single day without taking a break…

‘And this is what I have to show for it.’

But objectively speaking, the disaster had been inevitable from the moment I had skipped even the basics, like drawing straight lines, and jumped straight into creating a finished piece.

Even so, what tormented me was the fact that I had already managed to complete a painting once, almost like a miracle.

‘Seriously, how did I even draw that?’

The canvas was chaotic yet strangely serene, like something painted by Monet or Pissarro in the Impressionist style.

Staring intently at the portrait of Camille, which I couldn’t believe I had painted myself, left me feeling troubled.

‘Is it a matter of mindset?’

That was right. To be honest, I still wasn’t certain.

If Gail Pistachio wasn’t the culprit, then I would be driving an innocent person to their death.

“Haa…”

But I couldn’t simply give up, either.

I tightened my grip on the brush again.

One day, after struggling desperately to improve my skills by painting every day—

“My lady, you have a visitor!”

“A visitor?”

“Yes! Baron Clodel is waiting in the drawing room.”

Unexpected news had come to me.

“My father is here…?”

My brows instinctively furrowed deeply.

Why that man?

The fact that my father had come to see me was hardly good news.

He probably felt the same way.

“Father.”

As expected, my father, who had been waiting for me in the drawing room, narrowed his eyes the moment he saw me.

And then—

“Hmm…”

Tap, tap, tap.

The periodic tapping of his fingers against the table filled the drawing room.

It was a regular, irritating sound, almost enough to induce neurosis.

“……”

That was one of my father’s habits.

When he had plenty to say but felt it would damage his dignity to speak first, he would make that signal while waiting for the other person to initiate the conversation.

I decided to indulge his childish sulking, pretending I couldn’t bear to ignore it.

“…I was just about to contact you. I didn’t expect you to come all the way here yourself.”

Then I lowered myself into a familiar bow.

“I’ve been so overwhelmed with everything that I was late in paying my respects. I apologize.”

“Enough. You’ve never been affectionate to begin with.”

As though he had expected something from me even now, my father let out a disappointed sigh.

“You must be troubled, too. Who could have known that something so unfortunate would happen after only a year?”