Outlander (Outlander, #1)

by Diana Gabaldon

“I reckon there are a few fathers might be disappointed at that; I’d courted a lass or two hereabouts before I got arrested and taken to Fort William.” “Sorry you didn’t wed a local girl?” I asked coquettishly. “If ye think I’m going to say ‘yes,’ and you standin’ there holding a pruning knife,” he remarked, “you’ve less opinion of my good sense than I thought.”

he told me that a man must be responsible for any seed he sows, for it’s his duty to take care of a woman and protect her. And if I wasna prepared to do that, then I’d no right to burden a woman with the consequences of my own actions.”

“He said the greatest thing in a man’s life is to lie wi’ a woman he loves,” he said softly. He smiled at me, eyes blue as the sky overhead. “He was right.”

I’ve said often enough, and the good Lord kens weel enough that boys were meant to be smacked, or he’d not ha’ filled ’em sae full o’ the de’il.

“Aye, I ken the feeling,” he said. “Makes ye feel a bit hollow, no?” Ian smiled, embarrassment forgotten. “It does and all. I still get that feeling, ye know, when I see Jenny sudden, standing against the sun on the hill, or holding wee Jamie, not lookin’ at me. I see her, and I think, ‘God, man, she can’t be yours, not really.’ ” He shook his head, brown hair flopping over his brow. “And then she turns and smiles at me …” He looked up at his brother-in-law, grinning.

“Oh, about my father, mostly. Things he said.” He folded his arms behind his head, staring musingly at the thick beams that crossed the low ceiling. “It’s strange,” he said, “when he was alive, I didna pay him much heed. But once he was dead, the things he’d told me had a good deal more influence.” He chuckled briefly again.

“Didn’t your uncle beat you, then, when you needed it?” he asked curiously. I smothered a laugh at the thought. “Lord, no! He would have been horrified at the thought. Uncle Lamb didn’t believe in beating children—he thought they should be reasoned with, like adults.” Jamie made a Scottish noise in his throat, indicating derision at this ludicrous idea. “That accounts for the defects in your character, no doubt,” he said, patting my bottom. “Insufficient discipline in your youth.”

“Or even like his good-for-nothing red-heided uncle,” she added, raising her voice slightly and nudging me. “Hey?” Jamie looked up, distracted from his accounts. “Were ye speaking to me?” “I wonder was it the ‘red-heided’ or the ‘good-for-nothing’ that caught his attention,” Jenny said to me, sotto voce, with another nudge.

“I’ll tell ye, Sassenach. My father whipped me as often as he thought I needed it, and a lot oftener than I thought I did. But I didna cower when he spoke to me. And I dinna think young Rabbie will lie in bed with his wife one day and laugh about it.”

“You asked me, Captain, if I were a witch,” I said, my voice low and steady. “I’ll answer you now. Witch I am. Witch, and I curse you. You will marry, Captain, and your wife will bear a child, but you shall not live to see your firstborn. I curse you with knowledge, Jack Randall—I give you the hour of your death.”

There comes a turning point in intense physical struggle where one abandons oneself to a profligate usage of strength and bodily resource, ignoring the costs until the struggle is over.

I remembered suddenly what Jamie had said to me, the night Jenny’s baby was born: I can bear pain, myself, but I could not bear yours. That would take more strength than I have. He was right; it did take strength; I hoped that each of us had enough.

Not for the first time, I reflected that intimacy and romance are not synonymous.

“As though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.”

There was nothing wrong with my memory, whatever my moral shortcomings might be.

For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary. It is all. It is undying. And it is enough.

“The … it’s all linked for me now. I canna think of you, Claire, even of kissing you or touching your hand, without feeling the fear and the pain and the sickness come back. I lie here feeling that I will die without your touch, but when you touch me, I feel as though I will vomit with shame and loathing of myself.

I heard the pleading in his voice and knew I must spare him this one indignity, at least. I rose, and for the first time in my professional life, left a sick man to his own devices, helpless and alone.

In one of his increasingly rare lucid intervals, Jamie asked me to let him die. I answered curtly, as I had the night before, “Damned if I will,” and went on with what I was doing.

“Aye, well,” he said judiciously, “a view of my arse is no going to corrupt anyone’s Holy Orders; not in its present condition. Yours, though …” He paused to clear his throat. “What about mine?” I demanded. The bright head lowered slowly to plant a kiss on my shoulder. “Yours,” he said, “would compromise a bishop.”

The only reason I think I’m not dying now is that I’m hungry. I wouldna be hungry if I were about to die, do ye think? Seems a waste.”

“You can’t stand up?” He considered carefully. “If my life depended on it, I might possibly lift my head again. But stand up? No.”

“The heart of a lion,” I said, shaking my head, “and the head of an ox. Too bad you haven’t also got the hide of a rhinoceros.”

“Fine,” I said. “Bloody fine! I’ll order bread and meat for you, and after you vomit on the floor, you can just get down on your hands and knees and clean it up yourself! I won’t do it, and if Brother Roger does, I’ll skin him alive!”

“And I still can’t get over the fact that you really do believe me.” He shrugged, gallantly offering me an arm to hold while I slipped the rough straps of the sandal over my instep. “Ma chère, I serve a man who multiplied the loaves and fishes”—he smiled, nodding at the pool, where the swirls of the carps’ feeding were still subsiding—“who healed the sick and raised the dead. Shall I be astonished that the master of eternity has brought a young woman through the stones of the earth to do His will?”

I knew him before. He’s as good as he is only because of Jenny. She … keeps him whole.” He smiled sheepishly at me. “As ye did for me. I canna think why women bother.” “Well,” I said softly, “women like to do that.” He laughed quietly and drew me close. “Aye. God knows why.”

“For a virtuous woman is a pearl of great price, and her value is greater than rubies.”

“Come to think of it, I’ve a wee giftie for ye, myself, Sassenach,” he said, smoothing my hair. I sniffed and wiped my nose on my skirt, having nothing else handy. “I’m sorry I haven’t got anything to give you,” I said, watching as he stood up and began to dig through the tumbled bedclothes. Probably looking for a handkerchief, I thought, sniffing some more. “Aside from such minor gifts as my life, my manhood, and my right hand?” he asked dryly.