Go Tell the Bees that I Am Gone (Outlander, #9)

by Diana Gabaldon

morning sun lighting a shockingly familiar pair of blue and slanted eyes fixed on hers. “Bloody hell,” he said, completely startled. “It’s you!”

The feel of his breath on her turpentine-chilled hand raised the hairs on her forearm, and she tightened her fingers on his. He straightened up but didn’t pull away; his fingers turned and covered hers.

“I—did you say that Lord John sent you?” “Yes, he did, the conniving old sod. Er…begging your pardon, ma’am.”

Lieutenant Hanson, quite eclipsed by William and Mr. Cinnamon, who were each a good foot taller than he was, struggled manfully to regain Brianna’s attention.

🤣

“I wanted to tell you,” she said at once, closing the door and standing with her back against it. “When we first met. Do you remember? On the quay in Wilmington. Roger—my husband—was with me, and Jem and Mandy. That was—I wanted you to meet them, see them, even if you didn’t know we were…yours.” He looked away and put a hand on the table, touching the wood only with his fingertips. She felt the solid door against her shoulder blades and understood the need of physical support. “Mine?” he said softly, looking down at the scatter of papers and brushes on the table.

“A bit late for that,” he finished, and looked up at her, his eyes wary but direct. “To lie about the truth, I mean.” His mouth turned up a little at one side, but she wasn’t sure it was a smile. “Particularly when it’s as plain as the nose on your face. And mine.” She touched her own nose by reflex, and laughed, a little nervously. His nose was hers, and the eyes, too. He was tanned, though, with dark-chestnut hair clubbed in a queue, and while his face was very like her—their—father’s, his mouth had come from somewhere else.

“Though in all honesty, I’m glad you didn’t tell me.” He paused, then, apparently thinking this might sound ungracious, added, “I wouldn’t have known how to respond to such a revelation. At the time.” “And you do now?” “No, I bloody don’t,” he said frankly. “But as my uncle recently pointed out, at least I haven’t blown my brains out. When I was seventeen, I might have.” A hot flush rose in her cheeks. He wasn’t joking.

He stopped abruptly. She swung round to look at him and found him staring at the portrait of Jane, propped against the wall, as though he had quite literally seen a ghost. He’d gone pale under his tan and his hands were half clenched.

Well, someone DID see it

“Fanny,” he said. “Frances.

Like father, like son.

“to visit my…well, I suppose he’s my stepbrother, and Marsali, well, she’s sort of my stepsister,

Foster brother? Adopted brother? Brother brother, but not step, IMO Marsali is step. Their family tree needs side notes😂

“Are these people also my relations?” he asked, as though fearing the answer might be yes. “I suppose so. Da adopted Fergus—he’s French, but…well, that doesn’t matter. He was an orphan, in Paris. Then later Da married…well, that doesn’t matter, either, but Marsali—she’s Fergus’s wife—and her sister, Joan, they’re Da’s stepdaughters, so…um. And Fergus and Marsali’s children—they have five now, so they’d be…” William took a step back, detaching himself, and put up a hand. “Enough,” he said firmly. He pointed a long forefinger at her. “You, I can deal with. Nothing else. Not today.”

Mais oui, my boy! They're all yours, since Jamie is the tie!

“I’ll carry it,” he said, and reached to open the door for her. “I’m coming with you.”

Good boy And again, like father, like son❤️

She’d had visions of herself riding a wizened donkey, her feet dragging in the dust, surrounded by large men on big horses, towering above her. As it was, William and John Cinnamon both possessed sound but unremarkable geldings, and the lieutenant himself rode another, smaller mule. The lieutenant wasn’t happy.

“I am not allowing my sister to go unaccompanied into an army camp,” William had said firmly, untethering his own horse outside the Brumbys’ house. “Mais oui,” Mr. Cinnamon said, and bent to give Brianna a foot up into her saddle.

These two are 2 of a kind, too. Almost as if John WAS his father.

He ignored the glare, but urged his horse up toward Hanson’s mule. The lieutenant was carrying his flag of truce, and at this, moved it instinctively, pointing it at William in the manner of a jousting lance.

He eyed her for a moment, then looked away with a patently bland countenance.

Jamie Jr

“His men,” William said, before Lieutenant Hanson could answer. He spoke with a sober certainty. “He’s their commander. They’ll need to bid him farewell. Properly.”

Like Simon Fraser at Saratoga

bringing his horse round in a circle to calm it. And who taught you to ride, brother? she thought, seeing him. Lord John was a good horseman, but Jamie Fraser had been a groom at the estate where William had grown up.

“You seem to know a bloody lot about it, for a guy who just rode into town.” “A guy?” The brow flicked higher, but relaxed as he dismissed this.

Now they need to tell HIM

William stepped up beside her at once. He didn’t say anything or touch her, but she was glad of his presence.

“Would you tell Captain Pinckney what things you require for the task, sister?” Hearing the word “sister” in his voice again gave her an odd little bloom of warmth in the middle of her chest.

It hadn’t occurred to her that Lord John hadn’t told William she was a rebel. Dr. Wallace undoubtedly knew her political allegiance, but perhaps had thought it more discreet not to mention it. And she’d been staying in a Loyalist household in a city under British occupation, employed by a very prominent Loyalist.

For the first time, it occurred to her to wonder just what William’s motive in coming had been.

“It’s all right,” he said softly. “You do what you came to do. We’ll stay with you and take you home in the morning. I meant it; I won’t leave you alone.”

She pressed a hand hard against the placket of her stays, and mentally uttered a fierce Stay! as though her heart were a large, unruly dog.

“He put the candles out,” said William, and sniggered very briefly. “Good thing the tent didn’t explode.” “That would have been quite fun,” Cinnamon said, with obvious regret. “And fitting, too, for a hero. Still, your sister’s drawings…I’ll toss you to see who goes in to get them.” He fumbled in his pocket and withdrew a shilling.

“Stercus?” Bree repeated, turning to John Cinnamon. “It means ‘shit’ in Latin,” the big Indian explained. “You aren’t a Catholic, are you?” “I am,” she said, surprised. “And I do know some Latin. But I’m pretty sure ‘stercus’ isn’t in the Mass.” “Not one I’ve ever heard,” he assured her. “I thought you wouldn’t be Catholic, though. William isn’t.” “No.” She hesitated, wondering just how much this man knew about William and the complications of their shared paternity. “You…er…have you been traveling with William for some time?” “A couple of months. He didn’t tell me about you, though.” “I suppose he wouldn’t have.” She paused, not sure whether to ask what—if anything—William had told him.

She was too tired to argue with him. She laid down her sketchbox, shook the blanket, and when no bedbugs, lice, or spiders fell out, sat down, feeling like a puppet whose strings had just been cut.

Like mother, like daughter 🥰

her brother jerking his chin in exactly the way her—their—father did…dark

her brother’s face was a foot from hers, shadowed but visible as he lay asleep on the other pallet.

She cast a quick glance at William, but he had sunk back into slumber; she could hear a faint snore from the darkness and smiled at the sound.

Shocked—and moved—by meeting William, she hadn’t had time to wonder, let alone ask, what had led him to Savannah, why he had resigned his army commission, what he thought about his two fathers…what he thought about her. Who he was.

“I want to know my name,” he said, so low she scarcely heard him. “I want to know the name my mother called me. He’s the only one who knows that.”

“Da wouldn’t mind.” Blood rose in his cheeks, but he was saved from saying what he thought about Jamie Fraser’s preferences in the matter by Brianna’s instantly returning to the subject of Malcolm Stubbs.

And he found that he very much wanted John Cinnamon not to be hurt.

“Options?” he said. He was amused, but the word still gave him a sense that he’d swallowed a live eel. You have no idea, sister mine…

Uncle Hal truly was a rock, over whom floods and torrents had often passed, leaving him unmoved.

one or two with eyes widened at sight of Brianna astride with her skirts hiked up and an indecent expanse of calf showing—but

“Oh, dear God,” Brianna said in a choked voice. William glanced at her and saw that tears were running down her face, her eyes fixed on the pitiful scene, and he recalled with a shock the children he had heard playing outside the Brumby house—hers. He reached out a hand and grasped her arm—she let go of the reins with that hand and seized his as though she were drowning, clinging for dear life, remarkable strength for a woman.

“You little bas—” she began, and then pressed her lips together, cutting off the word. “Bastard,” he finished for her. “Yes, I am. Go home.” And turning his back on her, he reached down a hand to the boy and lifted him ’til he could get a foot on the stirrup and scramble up behind.

“Has anyone ever told you that being reckless will get you killed?” she asked, imitating his polite tone. “Not that I care that much, but you’ll likely get this kid, as well as John Cinnamon, killed too.” “Kid?” was all he could think of saying, for the collision of words trying to get out of his mouth. “Child, boy, lad, him!” she snapped, jerking her chin toward the little drummer behind him.

“See? You may be reckless, but I knew you weren’t stupid.

it had been in the sala of an old house in Havana, a painted angel with spread wings fading on the plaster wall, who watched with compassion as he held his mother as she wept over the death of his cousin Olivia and her small daughter.

Glad I've read that, nothing like an author spoiling her own stories 🙃

John heard him now blowing out his breath and hauling it in again in a rhythmic, measured way that must be the technique Claire Fraser had taught him for not dying of asthma. John was—not for the first time in their shared acquaintance—grateful to her.

“We’ll send William,”

Damn good thing willie quit the army - they'd have to find another errand boy!

“Perseverance,” Grey said, shaking his head as his erstwhile stepbrother came up beside him, smiling. “Never was a man so well named.”

no one could have said, then or afterward, whose idea the kiss had been, nor yet what followed.

Oh for God's sake I hope they weren't banging in the garden