Chapter 2

My Husband Lives Inside the Painting

Suicide.

Camille’s cause of death could be summed up in just two words.

But perhaps because it was so simple, I still couldn’t believe it.

He had taken his own life. And so cruelly, at his own birthday banquet, the very one celebrating his twentieth birthday, until his face was completely unrecognizable.

……Why?

“Ugh……”

Feeling as though I might throw up at any moment, I left the place with my face deathly pale.

There was no one on the way back to the mansion. The rain was still falling steadily, and I walked along the muddy road beneath my umbrella, my black shoes sinking into the wet earth.

Splash, splash. The wet sound lingered in my ears.

Then my eyes began to feel unusually dry, so I rubbed them with my sleeve. That was when the toe of my shoe accidentally stepped on something.

A single white chrysanthemum.

“My lady. When spring comes, let’s go see the flowers together.”

Camille’s voice came back to me so vividly, as though he were speaking directly from behind me.

“They say there’s a garden filled with flowers in the western territory. Apparently, there’s a beautiful lake there, too.”

I bit my lip. I felt as though something were boiling up inside me.

“……Disgusting.”

Those words were probably directed at myself.

“I want to know more about you, my lady.”

“You were curious about me last time. What else could you possibly want to know now?”

“Anything is fine. Your hobbies, or even little things.”

“……I like painting. Though I’m not particularly good at it.”

It was the day I had finally opened up to him for the first time, after he was always so curious about me.

The only reason I had started talking about myself was because a capricious breeze had happened to blow that day. Because Camille’s smile had been as bright as sunlight that day. ……That was all.

After that day, Camille gradually came to know every little thing about me. He was always asking about me.

But what about me?

Had I ever once asked him about himself?

‘If I’d known this would happen, I should have talked to him more.’

It was a meaningless regret that occurred to me as I wandered through the cold corridors.

After aimlessly wandering through the mansion, I found a half-open door at the end of a corridor I had never visited before.

A distinctive dry smell, the kind that lingered only after construction had just been completed, seeped through the crack in the door.

Perhaps finding that room had been fate.

“……!”

Inside the small room illuminated by moonlight stood an easel and an empty canvas. On the table, paints, brushes, and a palette had been neatly arranged.

Suddenly, I remembered what Camille had said to me yesterday as I left the banquet hall earlier than everyone else.

“Tomorrow, there’s something I absolutely want to show you.”

At that moment, I felt my breath catch in my throat.

“……Is this what you meant?”

The person who had said those words had completely forgotten about them, while that foolish man……

What had he seen in that plain, prickly woman who had no affection to show and whom he probably believed hated him?

Only then did I realize what the emotion constricting my chest really was.

“Ah…….”

I sank down right in front of the studio.

Tears fell with soft thuds through my disheveled hair.

“Why, why did I……!”

‘I shouldn’t have treated Camille that way.’

It was guilt toward the one person who had loved me.

Starting the next day, I began painting as though possessed.

“My lady! I heard the Second Young Master just arrived. He’ll be staying here with us from now on, so surely you should at least go and greet—”

“I’ll do it later. I’m busy right now.”

“Ah……”

Romain.

She was my personal maid, and she had come to see me first thing in the morning, talking to me without pause.

“B-but I heard he’s really handsome! I heard he spent a long time in the borderlands. I’ve never met him myself, but I’m sure there must be a lot you could learn from him.”

“Then you can go in my place.”

“M-me?”

“Yeah. Go and come back, then tell me what you think.”

But when I continued responding coldly just as I had the day before, she eventually closed her mouth with a small, defeated groan.

After a moment, she asked with a resigned sigh,

“Are you planning to stay in the studio all day again today?”

At the direct question, my lips pressed tightly together instead.

“It would be better if you went for at least a little walk…… You haven’t even been eating properly lately.”

I could feel her persistent gaze on my back, but I pretended not to notice and kept my eyes fixed on the canvas.

“My lady……”

There was a reason even she, who normally never interfered in my affairs, was meddling now. It had already been a full week since I began shutting myself away in the studio, neither eating nor even washing myself.

But I couldn’t put down my brush.

‘I want to see Camille.’

I couldn’t endure it without clinging to the memories that were slowly fading. I had to capture his image on the canvas. Only then could I breathe.

Because there wasn’t a single portrait of Camille anywhere in this mansion.

But how was that possible?

‘How could the eldest son of House Ortega not have even one portrait?’

I had countless questions, but I couldn’t ask Belladonna for the reason, so I came to my own conclusion.

‘Then I’ll paint him myself. A portrait of Camille.’

After Romain, who had stood there like a stone statue for quite some time, finally left the studio, I immediately lifted the wine bottle to my lips and drank straight from it.

Glug, glug.

“Ugh…… Ugh.”

Pouring alcohol into an empty stomach was absolutely miserable. But there was nothing better for making my thoughts disappear.

“Where was the yellow paint……?”

Everything was improvised, from squeezing out the paints to choosing the colors.

Without even being conscious of what colors I was using, I mindlessly swept my brush across the canvas.

But they say inspiration comes from melancholy, don’t they?

‘Why is this turning out so well?’

And then, how much time had passed?

Crash—!

The wine bottle fell to the floor and shattered, and I suddenly came to my senses.

“……!”

There was my husband’s face, smiling exactly as he always had.

Camille was right before my eyes.

I had finally managed to complete him.

“Ah…….”

I dropped the brush from my hand.

Then, as though possessed, I reached toward the painting, only to pitch forward.

Crash!

“Ah……”

My knee throbbed as though it were bleeding, but my eyes never left the painting.

I managed to pull myself up and placed both hands against the canvas.

“C-Camille.”

Unfinished paint smeared across my trembling palms, but I didn’t care about something like that.

“……Why on earth did you die and leave me behind?”

The studio was pitch-black.

Amid the flickering candlelight, my shadow stretched long across the floor as I knelt there like a sinner.

“Did you really take your own life?”

Camille was still smiling. Standing in the middle of a flower field, looking down at me.

“Why……? Was it because I…… treated you badly?”

As my vision gradually blurred, I lowered my head.

Soon, my hoarse voice echoed through the room.

“I’m sorry……”

How futile it was to confess one’s wrongdoing to someone who had already left this world.

Even knowing that the person who should have heard these words was not here.

“I-I’m sorry for everything, so can’t you stay by my side? Hm?”

Some people say that regret is a privilege only humans can possess.

But how could an emotion that only comes into being when faced with something that can never be undone be called a privilege?

“Please.”

My voice, with my face buried against the painting, gradually became so quiet that even I could no longer hear it.

“Camille……”

Dong— Dong—

At that moment, the grandfather clock in one corner of the studio chimed the hour.

……Even though the hour hand wasn’t pointing to the exact hour.

‘4:44?’

Just as my shoulders stiffened slightly after checking the time, a breeze brushed past me from somewhere.

“Ob.”

A beautiful, youthful voice.

“My love. Come over here.”

“……!”

I swallowed hard and immediately sprang to my feet. Because I had gotten up so quickly, my vision briefly went dark.

“Ugh……”

Holding onto my unsteady body, I looked around again.

But there was no one there. Not inside the studio, nor in the half-open corridor.

“W-who are you?”

Then, this time from much closer, the voice rang out once more.

“Who else? I’m your husband.”