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

by Diana Gabaldon

Iam apis potanda fineo ne.

“I’d just have winged him in the leg. Or maybe shot off a couple o’ toes.” Pardloe made a sound that might have been outrage, but, knowing the man as he did, Jamie recognized it as smothered laughter. He hoped his sister wouldn’t.

But I carried the warmth of her with me. For a long time,” he said very softly.

That gave me a quite unexpected stab of jealousy, and I straightened a little, fighting it back with clenched hands. He sensed it and turned his head toward me. He’d felt that flame ignite—and had one to match it.

“Je suis tellement désolé, je suis un navet!”

I'm so sorry, I'm a turnip!

it. “Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, à votre service!”

I had a moment’s insane impulse to reply, “No, he sent me to fight instead,” but managed not to say it.

“Someone told me ye’d gone off with a strange Frenchman.

I quite liked strong cheese. I wasn’t the only one. Rollo, who had come in—naturally—with Young Ian and was sitting behind him, across the table from me, lifted his head and poked a long, hairy snout between Ian and General Lee, sniffing interestedly at the cheese.

Imagine that, a dog all up in the cheese aromas. Shocker😂

the most revolting eating habits I’d seen since Jemmy had learned to feed himself with a spoon.

Given the low bench on which Lee was sitting and Rollo’s size, this proximity placed them roughly eye-to-eye. “Why is that dog looking at me like that?” Lee demanded, swinging round to glare at Ian. “He’s waitin’ to see what ye drop next, I expect,” Ian said, chewing placidly. “If I were you, sir,” Jamie put in politely, “I’d drop something quickly.”

he and Jamie always laughed when I spoke Gaelic—but

“Auntie,” he said softly. “D’ye think I ever stopped bein’ a Scot?”

And while Uncle Lamb had assured me that the cult of Vesta had long since ceased operations, I had at that point resolved not to be a virgin, just in case. On the whole, a good resolution, though sleeping with men did have the most peculiar side effects.

en déshabillé.

Dottie, who was massaging the massive back of a very large woman seated hunched over on a stool in front of her, grinned at me over the woman’s capped head. “How are you, Auntie. Restless tonight?”

With very vivid memories of my own wedding night—and my stupefaction upon being informed that my bridegroom was a virgin—I temporized a bit.

“Does Uncle Jamie ken where ye are, Auntie?” he asked. “He was lookin’ for ye just now. He said he’d put ye somewhere safe to sleep, but ye’d escaped. Again,” he added with a broad grin.

“Er … is Jamie put out, do you think?” Ian and Rachel both laughed at that. “No, Auntie,” Ian said. “But he’s dead tired, and he wants ye bad.” “Did he tell you to say that?” “Not in precisely those words,” Rachel said, “but his meaning was plain.”

“Mrs.—I mean, Friend Claire was just telling me some very interesting things. Regarding … er … what to expect on one’s wedding night.” Rachel looked up with interest. “I should welcome any such instruction myself. I know where the … um … parts go, because I’ve seen them go there fairly frequently, but—” “You have?!?” Dottie gawked at her, and Rachel laughed. “I have. But Ian assures me that he has more skill than the average bull or billy goat, and my observations are limited to the animal world, I’m afraid.” A small line showed between her brows. “The woman who cared for me after the death of my parents was … very dutiful in informing me of my womanly obligations, but her instructions consisted largely of ‘Spread thy legs, grit thy teeth, girl, and let him.’ ”

“Pour me another cup of beer, will you? And have some more yourselves. I suspect we may need it.”

“… and if he says, ‘Oh, God, oh, God,’ at some point,” I advised, “take note of what you were just doing, so you can do it again next time.” Rachel laughed,

All of them were flushed and, while certainly not staggering, were surrounded by a distinct haze of fermented barleycorn. “There ye are, Sassenach!” Jamie brightened still further at seeing me, and I felt a small rush of delight at it. “Are ye—who’s this?”

“Uncle Jamie!” Jamie turned to look over his shoulder. “Aye?” “And was she gentle with ye?” “God, no,” Jamie said, and grinned broadly.

Uncle and nephew FTW

“If they’d seen the way I looked at ye, Sassenach, when ye didna see me lookin’—then, aye, they would.”

My other favorite quote. Hands down.

“You’re right, he is your son,” I said to Jamie, amused. He snorted, but didn’t look altogether displeased.

“Blood will tell,”

“Thee is a rooster, William,”

“Tho?” said Fanny, in a remarkably cold voice for a girl of her age.

“The way ye came out o’ the muck, your eyes bleezin’ blue and your face set for murder—that was Uncle Jamie to the life, when he’s roused.”

Absolutely

“Does he have a cock?” came a French-accented whisper from behind me and an unhinged giggle from Marsali in response. “You can’t get married without a cock.” This reminiscence of Fergus and Marsali’s unorthodox wedding on a Caribbean beach made me stuff my lace handkerchief into my mouth. Jamie shook with suppressed laughter.

We had all discussed the matter at some length the night before and concluded that we wouldn’t wait until spring to leave Savannah. With the city occupied, there was no chance of Fergus and Marsali resuming publication of their newspaper, and with Colonel Richardson lurking behind the scenes, the place was beginning to seem distinctly dangerous. We would all travel together to Charleston, get Fergus and Marsali established there, and then the rest of us would go on north to Wilmington, where we would begin to equip ourselves for the trip into the mountains when the snows began to melt in March. “Ye told them, Sassenach,” Jamie said, scratching Miranda’s forelock with his free hand. “What the war would be, and how long it would last. Germain’s of an age when he’ll be out and in the thick o’ things. Marsali’s worrit that he’ll come to harm, loose in a city where the sorts of things happen that do happen in wartime. God knows the mountains may be no safer”—he grimaced, obviously recalling a few incidents that had taken place there—“but on the whole, he’s likely better off not being in a place where he could be conscripted by the militia or pressed into the British navy.” I looked down the gravel path that led to the house; Germain had drifted away from his mother, grandmother, Rachel, and his sisters and joined Ian and Fergus in conversation with Lord John. “Aye, he kens he’s a man,” Jamie said dryly, following the direction of my gaze. “Come along, a leannan,” he said to Fan...

“Aye? Where is it that ye mean to go?” Fraser was wearing his plaid, the faded colors muted further by the dimness of the light, but what light there was sparked suddenly from his hair as he moved his head.

“No,” he whispered. “No! I am not sorry.” Then he whirled on his heel, threw open the door, and was gone, kilt flying.

“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.