A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander, #6)

by Diana Gabaldon

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I said. “Bloody Timmy’s in the well!”

“I dinna ken,” he said at last, and lifted his head, looking out into the distance of land and sky. “No one does, Sassenach. We must just meet what comes as we can.”

“Indeed. Then I am sure you will have read the Letter of St. Paul to Timothy, in which he says, Let a woman be silent—” I had, in fact, encountered St. Paul and his opinions before, and had a few of my own. “I expect St. Paul ran into a woman who could outargue him, too,” I said, not without sympathy. “Easier to try to put a stopper on the entire sex than to win his point fairly. I should have expected better of you, though, Mr. Christie.” “But that’s blasphemy!” he gasped, clearly shocked. “It is not,” I countered, “unless you’re saying that St. Paul is actually God—and if you are, then I rather think that’s blasphemy. But let’s not quibble,” I said, seeing his eyes begin to bulge.

“He’s got lots of hair,” I reported, easing the perineum with oil. “Be careful, don’t push too hard! Not yet.” I spanned the curve of the emerging skull with my hand. “He’s got a really big head.” “I wouldna ever have guessed that,” said Marsali, red-faced and panting. “Thank ye for telling me.”

Brianna was perhaps a bit of a sluggard, though certainly never a slattern. Then he glanced across the table at Claire, uncombed hair standing on end as she blinked sleepily at him over the toast, and generously concluded that it probably wasn’t a conscious choice on Bree’s part, but rather the influence of genetics.

Come to think, perhaps being nearly killed wasn’t always a misfortune—so long as you didn’t actually die of it.

“All I want,” she said softly to the dark, “is for you to love me. Not because of what I can do or what I look like, or because I love you—just because I am.”

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine,”

“Don’t you know?” I said very softly, tracing the small, neat line of his ear. Tiny, stiff blond hairs sprouted in a tiny whorl from the tagus, tickling my finger. “Don’t any of you know? That it’s you. Not what you can give, or do, or provide. Just you.”

“My soul didna wander while I slept—when I slept wi’ her.”

“What’s a bigamiss?” Jem inquired. “A very large young lady,” Roger said,

“If ye ken the house is meant to burn down on a certain day, why would ye be standing in it?”