Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander, #2)

by Diana Gabaldon

“And damn you, too, Claire Randall Fraser, while I’m at it!” he said. “Damn right I begrudge! I grudge every memory of yours that doesna hold me, and every tear ye’ve shed for another, and every second you’ve spent in another man’s bed! Damn you!”

“You’re mine, damn ye, Claire Fraser! Mine, and I wilna share ye, with a man or a memory, or anything whatever, so long as we both shall live. You’ll no mention the man’s name to me again. D’ye hear?” He kissed me fiercely to emphasize the point. “Did ye hear me?” he asked, breaking off.

“I will find you,” he whispered in my ear. “I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you—then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest.”

His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me. “Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”

she went on, translating, “Then let amorous kisses dwell On our lips, begin and tell A Thousand and a Hundred score A Hundred, and a Thousand more.”