It almost, but not quite, banished the sour taste of jealousy that she and their mother had been so close.
“Why Mary? Why not, say, the first Sir John? He sailed with Sir Francis Drake, after all. Or the Jacobite one? I’d have thought they’d have been easier to research—more fully documented, at any rate—if you wanted to fill in some family history.”
Bea made an impatient noise, taking him right back to his childhood. She didn’t often do that now she was grown-up. “I thought she was like me, don’t you see?”
“Like you how?”
“Think about it. She was cast out by the family. What did young ladies get disowned for in those days, if not for sexual misconduct?”
“So you assumed she got pregnant? By someone unsuitable?”
She nodded. “A fisherman, I thought. Or someone who worked for the family. Someone poor.”
“Was that what happened? Or didn’t you manage to find out?”
“I was wrong. She didn’t have a child out of wedlock, and there was no unsuitable young man from the village.” She almost laughed, then, but it had a bitter sound. “She was the unsuitable young man. At least as far as I can find out. It’s only circumstantial, of course, but there’s a fragment of a letter from her sister, Anne, to her husband, which talks of ‘my younger brother, the one I’m not to speak of.’ But she didn’t have a younger brother, not according to parish records. And there’s other evidence in the letter that suggests it was Mary she was referring to.”
“So . . . Mary was trans?” Jory was still reeling from the idea of Bea searching for a relative with whom she could feel a kindred spirit. Was it possible he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t quite felt at home in their odd, amputated little family?
Bea shrugged. “What does it matter, at this distance? Maybe she was just a butch dyke.” The words sounded ugly coming from her, but although they made him uncomfortable, Jory wasn’t convinced she’d meant them to. “At any rate, she was nothing like me.” She picked up her glass of water and took a sip, as if to wash away a bad taste.
Poor Bea. “I wish you’d told me,” he blurted out.
“About Mary Roscarrock? Why should you care?”
“No. About you. About the baby.”
“You were a child.”
“I grew out of it. And then I had Gawen . . .” Jory hesitated, then put a hand on her arm. She frowned at it oddly, but didn’t shake it off, which was something. “It must have been hard for you. Another baby in the family.”
Bea looked down at her hands, clasped awkwardly in her lap. “We never liked you, you know. Bran and I.”
Jory felt as if she’d slapped him.
She didn’t seem to notice. “When you were born . . . even before then, Mummy was tired all the time, and she used to say it would get better after the baby was born, and it never did. We didn’t know it was because she was ill. We thought it was just you.” She paused, and when she spoke again, it was in a low murmur, as if she was talking more to herself than to him. “She was always telling us to play with you so she could get some rest, but you were too young to play properly, and you cried all the time, and it was never any fun. I never liked playing with babies, not even pretend.” Finally, she looked at him. “You must have thought I was a horrible big sister.”
“I . . .” Jory shook his head, still floored by her uncomfortable honesty. He’d always known they’d disliked him, in that sense that one knows something deep inside without being able to explain why. But he’d never expected her to come out and say it. He felt a strange mix of nausea and vindication—and, absurdly, gratitude that she’d admitted it at last.
Equally absurdly, he felt the need to reassure her that it didn’t matter—but he didn’t know what to say. I hated Bran more than I hated you might not actually be a comfort. “It was a long time ago, and we’re different people now.”
“I know I am.”
Jory realised to his shock that she was crying. “Bea?”
“I never wanted children. I knew that from the moment you were born. No, longer. But then I got pregnant . . . You’ve got no idea what it’s like to give up a child. A baby. One you’ve carried in your womb for nine months.”
Jory frowned. “That’s not fair. After Gawen was born, I had to go back to college and hardly saw him for months on end. You know that. You and Bran insisted on it.”
“That doesn’t even compare. Someone handed you a baby and told you it was yours and you learned to love it. I felt that child kicking. He was real to me for months before he was born. Have you any idea what it was like to give him away the very day I saw him for the first time?”
“Then why—”
“Because it was the right thing to do. Christ, you have no idea, do you? It hurt, Jory. Like giving birth, only worse. God, how much worse. Like part of me was being ripped away. You know what happens to a woman’s body when she gives birth? It turns into a boiling fog of hormones, all designed to make her suffer if she loses her child. I made up my mind then, I was never going to feel like that again. Never going to let myself be hurt so badly.”
“Dev’s a grown man now,” Jory said softly, his heart aching for her. All these years he’d thought her cold and in control.
He’d been right, perhaps—but she’d got there the hard way.
“Yes. He is. I’m never going to get my baby back.”
“But you could—”
“No. It’s too late. He doesn’t need me now, so why should he want
