My Husband Lives Inside a Painting Chapter 34

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“I think Anne-Marie is still alive.”

I calmly delivered the truth. My voice was filled with certainty.

“I saw a piece of clothing move in the room beyond the listening room. It matched the description Johenn gave me, too.”

My new companion’s shoulders stiffened slightly at my calm confession.

“Then why didn’t you say so right away? We could have smashed our way in and gotten her out—”

“Didn’t you see on the way out? Soldiers were already rushing over because of the commotion we caused.”

“……”

“If I had known the girl was in the Buthier estate, I would have acted more carefully.”

Claude’s voice grew quieter.

Judging by the way he awkwardly turned his gaze toward the window, he seemed to think he had acted too hastily.

But I had no intention of blaming him, so I calmly reassured him.

“I’m not saying you ruined my plan. I was only there to get a feel for the situation this time anyway, and I accomplished my goal by finding Anne-Marie’s whereabouts. So, if anything, you showed up at exactly the right moment.”

“……”

“Thank you. For coming to save me.”

“……If you know, then that’s enough.”

He really was a terrible man when it came to expressing himself. I let out a small laugh.

After a brief silence, Claude broke it with a small question.

“But isn’t there a chance the child is in danger?”

“If he’s kept her alive until now, I don’t think so. Especially now, when all his attention is focused on me.”

There was no way I could rescue Anne-Marie right away anyway.

Rescuing her was important, but I was also hiding a revenge plan of my own.

If I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, I had to be twice as careful.

“By the way, I think it’s time you told me, Claude.”

I gave him a steady look. After thinking for a moment, Claude’s golden eyes gleamed.

“……Don’t throw up when you hear it.”

“It’s fine. I have a stronger stomach than you might expect.”

“Hah, I never thought I’d actually have to say this out loud…… Anyway, let’s move somewhere else first.”

And so, we headed to Claude’s study.

By then, the sunset had disappeared beyond the mountains, and deep darkness had settled all around us.

A midnight meeting began with four people gathered together: Claude, me, Romaine, and Hope.

“When I was sent to the western territory, I didn’t have a single friend.”

Claude began matter-of-factly.

“More precisely, I should say I had no one on my side. Everyone, even stray dogs passing by, knew that what they called recuperation was actually the family abandoning me.”

“……Ahem. For the record, I was only formally taken into the household two years after the lord arrived.”

Hope, who had been standing behind him, interjected as though defending himself.

Claude merely shrugged his crossed arms.

“I wasn’t trying to blame the people around me. Ron, who was the head steward at the time, was actually a pretty good man. He has passed away now.”

“Grandfather Ron was my grandfather, by the way!”

“……Yes. Though I do wonder how the blood got diluted somewhere along the way.”

“Huh?”

“Anyway, I’ll continue.”

Ron, the head steward of the western territory, had felt sorry for Claude, who had been cast aside by Belladonna at the tender age of eight.

He believed that children should be allowed to grow up like children. So he apparently searched the surrounding noble families and found one with a child around Claude’s age.

“That person was Pagoda Echirosa.”

“Echirosa? Is that the surname he used when he lived with his mother?”

“That’s right. But it probably didn’t have any particular significance. It was merely a disguise to conceal his identity.”

Claude continued.

“So…… I was occasionally invited to the Echirosa baronial estate. But unlike Madam, Pagoda never paid any attention to me, even though we were around the same age.”

“Then what did he do?”

“The maids. He was only interested in the maids who accompanied me.”

“……”

Had he been into married women even back then?

His taste really hasn’t changed at all.

Watching my expression stiffen, Claude gave a short snort of laughter.

“Do you understand now why I kept my distance from him? Around that time, Hope here had also entered the household, so I had no reason to visit the baronial estate anymore.”

“……So that was why you always glared at me whenever I was surrounded by maids, my lord.”

“I thought you were another man obsessed with women. To be honest, aren’t you, at least a little?”

“That’s unfair! I’m a man of sincere devotion!”

Hope repeatedly thumped his chest, desperately protesting his innocence.

Then he cast an earnest look toward Romaine, who was standing behind me, but Romaine merely blinked at him with wide eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“A-ah, no……!”

Oh dear. It seemed there was another hopeless one-sided love story unfolding here.

“……Enough. That’s not what’s important.”

Claude casually ignored Hope, who had fallen into a panic, and continued in his calm voice.

“Whether that bastard was obsessed with women or not was none of my concern. It wasn’t my business in the first place. But trouble always seems to happen in the most unexpected places.”

“What happened?”

“……”

After a brief pause, his brows drew together.

It wasn’t passion rising in him, but an old anger that had been buried and gone cold for a very long time.

After a moment, Claude continued his recollection.

“What’s going on? Why is everyone gathered here?”

“Ah…… My lord, Maria is leaving the estate as of today, so we were holding a small farewell party for her.”

“A farewell party? Is she quitting and returning to her hometown?”

“No. Apparently, she was recruited by the Echirosa Barony.”

“……Echirosa?”

“I wasn’t particularly sad about her leaving the estate. But hearing the name Echirosa gave me a strange feeling. And…… as I suspected.”

“……Don’t tell me.”

“She wasn’t found dead, but she very nearly was.”

“M-my lord! My lord! Please come out quickly!”

“What is it? I’m sleepy.”

“M-Maria……!!”

“Maria?”

Only after a brief silence did he manage to force the heavy words from his lips.

“Less than a week after leaving, the maid who had gone to the baronial estate returned in the middle of the night. ……She was in terrible shape.”

“Ah, I remember. Her entire body was wrapped in bandages, she had lost one eye, and all her fingernails had—”

“Hope, that’s enough.”

“S-sorry.”

At the vivid description, I unconsciously furrowed my brow, and Claude raised a hand to stop him.

Romaine’s complexion had already gone pale as well when I glanced at her.

“……I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

Perhaps because she was in a similar position herself, the story seemed to hit particularly close to home.

“I never found out what she had gone through at that estate. It must have been a memory too painful even to recall, so I couldn’t bring myself to ask. And the incident—”

“The culprit was a noble, while the victim was merely a maid, so I assume the incident was quietly buried.”

“No.”

“Pardon?”

“I went there myself. To the Echirosa estate. And I beat the shit out of that bastard before I left.”

“……”

“What did I care about? Whether he was the Emperor’s son or whatever.”

It was an outrageously bold course of action, going far beyond mere fearlessness. But for the servants of the territory, it must have been a deeply moving incident.

Sure enough, Hope quietly added that after that incident, Claude had gained the complete respect of the people in the territory.

“As it turned out, he had offered recruitment to several others besides Maria. But after our lord kicked up a fuss—or rather, delivered the righteous judgment of justice—he never dared set foot anywhere near our estate again.”

“……I can certainly see why.”

“Thanks to that, Maria recovered her strength and now has a family of her own. She even has children.”

I had secretly hoped for a happy ending, so I could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Claude, on the other hand, still looked grim.

“I thought I’d taught him a lesson he’d never forget back then. I never imagined he hadn’t changed.”

“Don’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”

“……”

Despite my words of comfort, Claude remained silent, tapping his fingernails against the armrest as he sat lost in thought.

Judging by his dark expression, he was clearly blaming himself for not having dealt with the matter more forcefully in the past.

Was his request to be included in the search for Anne-Marie also because he felt a connection with her?

A child who had been abandoned by his parents and exiled alone when he was young.

Perhaps he was projecting his own past onto abandoned children.

“……Claude. You said you wanted me to include you in my plan, didn’t you?”

“……”

“There’s something I’d like you to help me with.”

My red eyes met his golden ones across the empty space between us.

Facing his flickering golden gaze, I laid out my plan without holding anything back, unaware of how deep the night had already grown.