Color Song (A Passion Blue Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

daughter.” His voice was quiet. “In fact, I loved her dearly, more dearly than I love my sons—yes, I will admit it, for of all my children, she was most like me. Another man might have let her talent go to waste. But I trained her like a boy, like one of my own apprentices. And then, so she might follow her gift, I arranged for her to be taken into Santa Marta, where she could give her life to painting as no worldly woman ever could.”
    He turned toward Giulia again, a sudden motion that startled her, and took hold of the grille. She could see the paint under his nails, the charcoal stains on his fingers.
    “I gave her everything.
Everything.
All she was and all she became, she owed to me. Yet when I asked for Passion blue, she denied me. Again and again I asked, but always she refused. Was that the duty a daughter owes her father? To refuse the one thing I asked of her after all I’d done, a thing that would not even exist had I not opened the way for her to discover it? She left me no choice but to take matters into my own hands. Yet through it all I loved her, as any parent loves his disobedient child. Had she lived, we would have reconciled. Now . . . now we will never forgive each other, she and I.”
    His hands tightened on the bars, the knuckles whitening, as if he wanted to wrench the grille apart. In that gesture, even more than in his words, Giulia saw to the heart of the conflict between father and daughter: not just his greed for the fabulous color Humilità had invented, not just Humilità’s stubborn determination to keep her creation for herself, but his desire to rule her, her proud refusal to be ruled, Passion blue both the object and the symbol of their battle.
    “But I did not come to speak of this.” Matteo released the grille and stepped back, rubbing his palms together. “I have another matter in mind. I think you know what that is.”
    Giulia’s heart had begun to race. “No,” she said.
    “Come now. Let’s not pretend we do not understand each other. Did my daughter pass Passion blue to you before she died?”
    “No.” Giulia could not hold his gaze. She could feel the secret inside herself, and was terrified he would somehow perceive it. “She didn’t.”
    “Ah, but you see, I find that difficult to believe. You were her protégée. The one she hoped would succeed her. To whom else would she have given it?”
    “Perhaps she gave it to no one.”
    “My daughter was endowed with a full measure of womanly caprice, yet not so much, I think, that she would have taken Passion blue with her into death. No.” He shook his head. “She would have wanted it to live after her—for the sake of her pride, if nothing else. She passed it on, and you are the one she gave it to. Deny it as you wish; I know I am correct by the way you cannot look at me.”
    Giulia forced herself to raise her face to his. It was like walking against the wind. His eyes, unblinking beneath heavy brows, seemed to scour the inside of her skull. Was this what Humilità had confronted each time he demanded the secret? But Humilità had been like him. She would have found it easier to resist.
    “Truly, you are mistaken.” Giulia cursed herself for the quaver in her voice; but she was afraid of him, and she could not hide so many things at once. “She never gave me the secret. She never even spoke of it.”
    “That is your answer?”
    “I can give you no other.”
    He knew she was lying. She could see it in his face. She felt a terrible despair. He’d come here suspecting she had Passionblue, but he hadn’t known for sure. Now he did know. She’d kept the secret, but even so, she had failed Humilità’s trust.
    “Very well,” he said. “But we are not finished, you and I. Think on the answer you have given me today.” He aimed a paint-marked finger at her throat. “I will come and ask again.”
    “I won’t see you. I’ll talk to the novice mistress. I’ll remind her that you are no kin of mine, and