Written in My Own Heart's Blood (Outlander, #8)

by Diana Gabaldon

“We thought you were dead, you bloody arsehole!” he said, furious. “Both of us! Dead! And we—we—took too much to drink one night—very much too much … We spoke of you … and … Damn you, neither one of us was making love to the other—we were both fucking you!”

Just now he had no idea what he would say—or do—when he saw her, but he needed to see her, with the same sort of need that a man might feel who’d been cast away at sea, marooned without food or water for weeks on end.

“I have loved ye since I saw you, Sassenach,” he said very quietly, holding my eyes with his own, bloodshot and lined with tiredness but very blue. “I will love ye forever. It doesna matter if ye sleep with the whole English army—well, no,” he corrected himself, “it would matter, but it wouldna stop me loving you.”

But what I do say is that there is nothing in this world or the next that can take ye from me—or me from you.”

Always act as if you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t.

He straightened his shoulders as he thought this and, at the same time, saw Brian’s straight, flat back and the broad, firm shoulders under the dark sett of his tartan coat. They were the echo of Jamie’s—and the promise of Jem’s.

“You’re not going off to war without me,” I said firmly, straightening up and sniffing. “Don’t even think about it.” “I wouldna dream of it,”

His hair was more heavily traced with silver than it had been. I didn’t mind that; I minded that I hadn’t been there to see it slowly change, day by day.

“I dinna ken whether I’ll have a bed at all tonight,” he said, straightening up. “But whether it’s feathers or straw, promise ye’ll share it with me?” “Always,”

“It’s never left, Sassenach,” he said, just as softly. “It never will. But I sleep easier by your side.”

Brianna was Frank’s daughter, on paper—and by love. But the long, knife-blade nose and glowing hair of the man beside me showed whose blood ran through her veins.

“I love you,” I said, almost soundless, my arms wrapped tight about him. “Oh, dear God, I love you.”

“And I truly dinna want you to be here.” “I’m going to be where you are for the rest of our lives,” I said firmly. “If that’s a week or another forty years.” “Longer,” he said, and smiled.

“I will love ye forever. It doesna matter if ye sleep with the whole English army—well, no, it would matter, but it wouldna stop me loving you.” “I’ve taken ye to bed a thousand times at least, Sassenach. Did ye think I wasna paying attention?” “There couldna be anyone like you.”

“I may quibble wi’ what the Lord’s called me to do now and then, Sassenach—but I’ve nay argument wi’ how he made me.”

“Do you think they would have thought us well suited?” “If they’d seen the way I looked at ye, Sassenach, when ye didna see me lookin’—then, aye, they would.”

“Dinna fash, a nighean. I want only to lie here wi’ you in my arms, to keep ye safe and watch ye sleep. I can rise then with a clear mind … and go to do what must be done.”

“My uncle Dougal, and Murtagh, him who was my godfather. They’re the two I’d most want with me, in battle.” Jamie made a small restless movement. “If I can, I make a wee moment to be alone before a fight. To wash, ken, and pray a bit, and then … to just ask if they’ll bide with me as I go.” Ian thought this interesting; he hadn’t known either man himself—they’d both died at Culloden—but he’d heard stories. “Bonnie fighters,” he said. “Did ye ask my da, too? To go with ye, I mean. Perhaps that’s why he’s about.” Jamie turned his head sharply toward Ian, surprised. Then relaxed, shaking his head. “I never had to ask Ian Mòr,” he said softly. “He was always … just with me.” He gestured briefly to the darkness on his right.

“Ye always carry your women wi’ ye into battle, Ian Òg. They’re the root of your strength, man.”

“Then they’ll shoot me where I stand, sir, for I will not leave her side!”

There wasn’t anything but her and him, and he opened his eyes to look on her face, to fix it in his mind forever.

The men around him certainly thought so; there was a universal gasp as Murray drew the blade across his enemy’s throat. The momentary silence engendered by this was enough for most of the assembled to hear Murray say, with a noticeable effort, “I give you back your life!” He rose off the Indian’s body, swaying and staring as though blind drunk himself, and hurled the knife into the darkness—causing considerable consternation and not a little cursing among those in whose direction he’d hurled it. In the excitement, most of the crowd likely didn’t hear the Indian’s reply, but Grey and André did. He sat up, very slowly, hands shaking as they pressed a fold of his shirt to the shallow cut across his throat, and said, in an almost conversational tone, “You will regret that, Mohawk.” Murray was breathing like a winded horse, his ribs visible with each gasp. Most of the paint had gone from his face; there were long smears of red and black down his glistening chest, and only a horizontal streak of some dark color remained across his cheekbones—that and a smudge of white on the point of his shoulder, above the arrow wound. He nodded to himself, once, then twice. And, without haste, stepped back into the circle of firelight, picked up a tomahawk that was lying on the ground, and, swinging it high with both hands, brought it down on the Indian’s skull. The sound froze Grey to the marrow and silenced every man present. Murray stood still for a moment, breathing heavily, then walked aw...

“I think we can’t wait any longer to be married, Ian,” she said softly. “I will not have thee face such things alone. These are bad times, and we must be together.”

He’d seen that exact expression on Jamie Fraser’s face a hundred times, at least—but had never before seen it on William’s. It was the look of a man who doesn’t like his immediate prospects one bit—but who feels himself entirely capable of dealing with them.

“But we do not fear silence, for often God speaks loudest in the quiet of our hearts.”

I wondered whether people who are unhappily married think of their own nuptials when they witness a wedding; I thought that those who are happy always do. Jenny’s head was bowed, her face calm and inward but peaceful; did she think now of Ian and her wedding day? She did; her head turned a little to one side, she laid a hand lightly on the bench and smiled at the ghost who sat by her side.

“I like it when ye moan, Rachel,” he said, pausing for breath and grinning down at her. “D’ye want me to make ye scream?”

And there was nothing else in the world but her.

And then I saw Jamie, coming up from the docks, laughing at something Fergus was saying, and the world dropped back into place around me.

But I think Henri-Christian’s is probably a mutation—something that happens just once, a sort of accident.” Jamie gave a small snort. “Miracles only happen once, too, Sassenach,” he said. “That’s why all bairns are different.”

“I’ll need to build the new house first thing,” he said thoughtfully. He laid his own hand on mine and squeezed it. “And I’ll make ye a new garden. Ye can have half the money I got for my sword, to buy seeds.”

then I kissed his back and traced the scars that would never fade from his body, over and over with gentle fingers, until they faded from his mind and he slept in my arms.

“Is thee afraid of me, Rachel?” he whispered. “I am,” she whispered back, and closed her hand on his wounded shoulder, lightly but hard enough for him to feel the hurt of it. “And I am afraid for thee, as well. But there are things I fear much more than death—and to be without thee is what I fear most.”

“Mmphm. Well, I suppose men can make all the laws they like,” he said, “but God made hope. The stars willna burn out.” He turned and, cupping my chin, kissed me gently. “And nor will we.”

And no matter how he personally felt about the matter of his title, it was still his, by law. The Ninth Earl of Ellesmere drew himself up to his full height, squared his shoulders, and went to war.

“I am not a state at war, and you are not my army!” He began to speak, then stopped short, searching my face, his eyes intent. “Am I not?” he said quietly. I opened my mouth to reply but found I couldn’t. The birds had come back, and a gang of house finches chittered at the foot of a big fir that grew at the side of the clearing. “You are,” I said reluctantly, and, standing up, wrapped my arms around him.

“Ye lost your parents young, mo nighean donn, and wandered about the world, rootless. Ye loved Frank”—his mouth compressed for an instant, but I thought he was unconscious of it—“and of course ye love Brianna and Roger Mac and the weans … but, Sassenach—I am the true home of your heart, and I know that.”

“I have loved others, and I do love many, Sassenach—but you alone hold all my heart, whole in your hands,” he said softly. “And you know that.”