The Confessions(21)

“Oh, and there’s that look he gives you. You know the look. The magnifying glass in the sunlight look, and you’re there on the sidewalk like an ant burnt to a crisp.”

“I know that look,” she said between ragged breaths. “I’ve been that toasted ant more than once.”

“He gets off on it, you know,” Ballard said. “Gets off on seeming scary and tough. And all this time he had a gooey secret marshmallow in his heart. He was probably too embarrassed to tell you about it. You might think he’d gone soft. No man wants to go soft in front of his lover.”

“Oh no, not soft. Anything but that.”

“You’re allowed to be hurt that he kept a side of himself from you. So many men keep secrets from their wives and lovers—drinking habits, drugs, gambling, cheating. That makes sense, keeping the bad stuff a secret. But he kept the good stuff a secret from you. I think that would hurt worse. I think that would hurt the most.”

“It does hurt the most. I know all his darkness. I could carry that. I could handle all the bad stuff and the hard stuff and the scary stuff he’s told me. And here was this one beautiful shining secret part of him, and that’s the part he kept from me? It’s not fair. We aren’t sweet people, Father. Not me, not Kingsley, not S?ren. We’re a lot of things but we aren’t sweet. And all along he had this sweet fantasy, this lovely longing for something like a teenage girl imagining her wedding day, and he never shared that with me.”

“Even when he’s sweet he still manages to be a bastard somehow. You ought to cane him. I hear you’re good at it.”

“The best in the business.”

“You know there are two things you have to consider here, Eleanor,” he said, patting the back of her head. “First of all, maybe he didn’t know he had that diamond, as you call it, until he had his son. I’ve known many a man who swore up and down he didn’t want children until he became a father. Then overnight he becomes a new man. You’re imagining he kept a secret from you. You have to admit he might not have known the secret himself. The heart’s a labyrinth, even our own hearts, even to us.”

“I hadn’t considered that.”

“You also have to consider that the reason Marcus never told you about his desire to have children wasn’t because he knew you’d say no. There’s a good chance he didn’t ask you because he thought maybe…maybe you would say yes.”

She sat up and looked at him. “He thought I might say yes?”

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility for a woman in love with a man to change her mind about having children. It happens all the time. And what would have happened if you’d agreed to have his child? What would he have done?”

“He would have left the priesthood,” she said. “The day I told him I was pregnant, he would have called the bishop.”

“Of course he would have.”

“He doesn’t want to leave the priesthood or the Jesuits. He’s never wanted to leave.”

Ballard nodded. “Whether he wants to admit it or not, Marcus is a human being. And human beings often want things they can’t have. A man wants to lose weight, but he also wants to eat ice cream. A woman who wants to marry also wants to run from relationships because she’s afraid of turning into her mother. A man who wants to be a priest also wants to marry and have children—”

“He did have a child.”

“With a married woman. He wouldn’t leave the Church to marry a woman who was already married. No reason to leave the Church, right?”

“After we found out about Fionn, after Zach told us, I asked S?ren about that night with Grace and what happened. All he said was, ‘Little One, please believe me, I was meant to do this.’ And I believed him. When I held Fionn in my arms I knew it was true. He was meant to be that boy’s father. Why, I don’t know and I don’t care. But he was.”

“I’m old school where children are concerned,” Ballard said. “I think every child is part of God’s plan. But maybe this little boy—this miracle as you call him—maybe he’s a very special part of the plan.”

A fresh tear ran down her cheek. She started to wipe it away with the back of her hand, and he handed her a tissue from his stash.

“Thank you,” she said, dabbing her eyes, once more the duchess, no more the troubled teenaged girl.

“You’re welcome. We all need a good cry every now and then. I had one myself just this morning.”

“Did you stub your soul too?”

“I looked in the mirror without bracing myself.”

“Hush, you’re very handsome.”

“What did I say about flirting with me?”

“Sorry, sorry.” She held the tissue in her hand. Her eyes were bright green, incandescent from her tears. “He did it to protect me. That’s all.”

“That’s all it is,” Stuart said. “But you can still be hurt by it. You should forgive him, though. His intentions were good.”

“They were. They always are where I’m concerned. I’ll forgive him, I promise. Once I get up the courage to confess to him I looked through his Bible.”

“Good luck with that. He still scares the shite out of me.”

“Oh, no, he doesn’t.”