My Husband Lives Inside a Painting Chapter 26

As it turned out, Claude was interested in something else.

“Who is that child? His name is Johenn, is it?”

Since I wanted to change the subject anyway, I took a sip of black tea before answering.

“Johenn is a child who lives at Agnus Orphanage.”

“Agnus Orphanage?”

I briefly wondered how much I should tell him before carefully choosing my words.

“Johenn’s older sister, a girl named Anne-Marie, has gone missing. We need clues to find her, so I called Johenn here to confirm her appearance.”

At that, Claude fired off a sharp question as though he had been waiting for the opportunity.

“Why are you trying to do this yourself when you could leave it to the Imperial Investigation Bureau?”

“……”

The golden eyes fixed on me gleamed with suspicion. If I gave the wrong answer, I could end up being dragged away in restraints.

Fortunately, I was good at thinking on my feet.

“Didn’t you see the report about the disappearance in this morning’s paper? The Imperial Investigation Bureau must be extremely busy with that case.”

“But surely they aren’t putting every available person on that one case.”

“Of course not. But the Imperial Family isn’t going to mobilize just to find one orphaned child, are they?”

“……”

I gave him a look as though he were a child who knew nothing about how the world worked, and Claude firmly shut his mouth.

He had spent his entire life confined to the western territory, so it was only natural that he would be inexperienced with things like this. Still, the silence that settled between us seemed to stem from something more than just a verbal misstep.

“……The other missing-person case was about a man named Gail Pistachio, wasn’t it? I heard he was suspected of embezzling goods meant for delivery.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know that man well?”

The question was anything but casual.

I quickly sharpened my gaze, trying to read Claude’s intentions, but I couldn’t be certain. So, for the time being, I had no choice but to probe him lightly.

“What do you mean by ‘know him well’? That man was your brother’s close friend.”

“By my standards, if two people are close enough to exchange letters, then I’d say they know each other well.”

“……Letters.”

I immediately realized it.

He knew something, and that was why he was asking.

‘So he must have found out that I sent the painting.’

That was the only connection between Gail Pistachio and me.

I had also been the one to tip off the press about his embezzlement of charitable supplies, but there was no way Claude could know that.

‘Then I’d better get ahead of this.’

Rather than rambling out excuses over something he’d heard from someone else, a lie cleverly mixed with a grain of truth would be far more effective.

I remembered something I had once read in a book on rhetoric.

“Well. In that case, I suppose you could say we knew each other fairly well. I was grateful that he had been supplying charitable goods to Agnus for so long, so I sent him a gift recently.”

“……”

“But looking back, it was rather foolish of me. I had no idea he had been embezzling charitable supplies.”

“Was the gift sent in the name of House Ortega?”

“No. You may or may not know this, but I’m from a merchant guild myself. So I sent it anonymously to avoid causing any problems.”

After handling his question smoothly, it was my turn.

I deliberately set down my empty teacup with a clatter and asked quietly,

“But why are you asking me that? Were you particularly close to the missing Young Count?”

“Of course not.”

“Then that’s a little rude. I don’t think we’re close enough to be asking each other such personal questions.”

“……”

I had said enough. Surely he would understand.

Just as I was running my fingers over the handle of my teacup, however—

“Can’t you let me join that plan, too?”

“……What?”

“The investigation into the disappearance.”

No.

If he was going to say something, shouldn’t it at least have been within the realm of things a person could reasonably predict so I could prepare an answer?

Faced with words I could never have imagined even in a dream, I stumbled over my response.

“Uh, um.”

So, the fact that I failed to filter myself and let my true feelings slip out was entirely his fault.

“Why would I……?”

“……”

“Ah.”

Right.

No matter how I thought about it, this wasn’t my fault.

 

***

 

Before long, spring had fully arrived.

There were two signs that heralded the beginning of spring in the Empire.

One was the lighter clothing people began wearing, and the other was the Beginning-of-Spring Banquet hosted by the Imperial Family.

To the people here, spring, arriving after the long winter, meant a new beginning. Thus, attending the banquet in colorful outfits celebrating the season had become a grand annual tradition.

“Oh my, you had a new evening dress made?”

“Yes. It’s a dress dyed with madder. Red is my family’s color.”

“What do you think of my dress? It was designed by La Fleur Salon.”

“Isn’t the madam there originally from La Rose Blanche? I heard she’s been in charge of Lady Belladonna’s dresses for ten years……!”

Groups of people chatted among themselves, but the moment a carriage decorated with golden insignia arrived, they stopped talking as though they had been waiting for it.

“Look over there. It’s the Ortega carriage!”

“Oh……”

A strange silence briefly descended.

This was the first official event since the funeral.

It was safe to say that even those who normally detested banquets had gathered simply to watch this moment.

Her beauty had never faded despite being past forty, she possessed enough ability to have served as Chancellor, and she had ruled House Ortega with an iron will, protecting it single-handedly.

Belladonna had never once fallen from the pinnacle of admiration.

And then she lost the eldest son she had cherished so dearly.

She had collapsed so utterly at the funeral that there was now an expectation—or perhaps merely curiosity—that she might have been completely broken by it.

That anticipation filled the air.

But the moment Belladonna stepped out of the carriage, that atmosphere vanished.

“My goodness……”

“I’ve never seen such a beautiful dark-green dress before. I’ve never seen that fabric at any salon……”

With her back perfectly straight, Belladonna crossed through the crowd with confidence, her expression as cold and composed as ever.

The grief she had displayed at the funeral was nowhere to be seen.

She had returned completely to her former self.

Naturally, the attention of the crowd shifted to the two people following behind her.

“Only Orb Ortega is insisting on wearing black. And the one beside her must be the second son they brought in from the west. Have you ever seen him before?”

“No, it’s my first time seeing him, too. But as expected, he doesn’t resemble Belladonna in the slightest.”

It wasn’t only young ladies and noblewomen who took an interest in House Ortega.

Those who had secretly hoped to see Ortega’s standing diminish could only sigh and shake their heads.

“……As expected, the reputation is well deserved. Watching them all strain themselves just to get close enough to step into Madam’s shadow today is quite a spectacle.”

“Good heavens, isn’t that rather insensitive to say about a woman who has lost her child?”

“This is what women are like. One child is quite enough. How long do you intend to grieve over them?”

“W-What did you say?”

As we followed Belladonna toward the banquet hall, I frowned at the stinging gazes directed at us from every direction.

‘Everyone is just as unpleasant as ever.’

The whispers brushing against my skin should have been uncomfortable, but of the three of us, I seemed to be the only one conscious of the blatant atmosphere.

“……”

Well, to be honest, I wasn’t exactly paying attention to the atmosphere either.

There was something far more troublesome for me.

“Are there really this many nobles in the Empire? This place is noisy enough to drive me mad.”

Claude, dressed in a dark-green uniform that matched Belladonna’s, walked along irritably.

Just one look at his menacing gaze was enough to tell how foul his mood was.

“……Claude, are you angry?”

In the end, I was the one who cautiously spoke to him first.

As though he had been waiting for me to ask, an answer immediately came.

“No.”

“You are angry. You haven’t even looked me in the eye since earlier.”

“I’m not angry.”

Judging by how he quickened his pace, he was definitely lying.