Drums of Autumn (Outlander, #4)

by Diana Gabaldon

I can take a book from dusty shelves, and be haunted by the thoughts of one long dead, still lively as ever in their winding sheet of words.

“Slàinte,”

“I could know ye all my life, I think, and always love you.

Then he saw her, and his face lit like a candle. In spite of herself, she felt a huge, idiotic smile break out on her own face in answer, and without stopping to think of misgivings, she ran across the room, dodging stray children and luggage carts. He met her halfway and swept her almost off her feet, hugging her hard enough to crack her ribs.

“By day, mild-mannered historian Roger Wakefield is a harmless Oxford academic. But at night, he dons his secret tartan rrregalia and becomes the dashing—Roger MacKenzie!”

“My father always said that was the difference between an American and an Englishman. An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; an American thinks a hundred years is a long time.”

I didn’t know whether you were just being nice to me because Mama asked you to, or whether—” “Whether,” he interrupted, and smiled as she risked a tiny look at him. “Definitely whether.”

Je suis prest, it said. I am ready.

for the sake of my bonny blue eyes,

“Twenty-four years ago today, I married ye, Sassenach,” he said softly. “I hope ye willna have cause yet to regret it.”

while disagreeing now and then with some of the Roman philosophers—regarded both Homer and Virgil as personal friends.

duine uasal, perhaps.” It was a Gaelic expression I had heard before, literally “a man of worth.”

Highland men were bred to fight; Highland boys became men when they could lift their swords and go to battle.

“Da mi basia mille,” he whispered, smiling. Give me a thousand kisses. It was the inscription inside my ring, a brief quotation from a love song by Catullus. I bent and gave him one back. “Dein mille altera,” I said. Then a thousand more.

the mountain itself seemed to inhibit speech; full of secret green places, it was a vivid offspring of the ancient Scottish mountains, thick with forest,

And if the soil beneath his feet was not that of Scotland, it was free air that he breathed—and a mountain wind that stirred his hair, lifting copper strands to the summer sun.

“You are my courage, as I am your conscience,” he whispered. “You are my heart—and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?” “I

“I was dead, my Sassenach—and yet all that time, I loved you.”

“And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours. Claire—I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you.”

“The times are changing, and we with them.

He could smell her, the minglings of shampoo and soap and powder, the smell of her flesh masked by the ghosts of flowers.

“Let me be worthy of her, let me love her rightly; let me take care of her.”

“I’ll wait,” he said, and let her go.

So she had found him, Claire. Found her gallant Highlander,

a love strong enough to withstand separation and hardship, strong enough to outlast time.

A widely traveled, well-educated man, still he had been born a Highlander, and I knew he had a deeply superstitious streak, though it didn’t often show.

I might have sound reasons for disliking John Grey—always difficult to feel a warm sense of goodwill toward a man with a professed homosexual passion for one’s husband, after all—but

He opened his light blue eyes very wide, then lowered his very long lashes and batted them deliberately at me. “I did not come with the intention of seducing your husband, I assure you,” he said.

“I have all that man could want,” he said quietly. “A place, and honorable work. My wife at my side. The knowledge that my son is safe and well cared for.” He looked up then, at Grey. “And a good friend.”

Jamie stood quite still, feeling his heart beat, watching. It was one of those strange moments that came to him rarely, but never left. A moment that stamped itself on heart and brain, instantly recallable in every detail, for all of his life.

He had such glimpses of Claire, of his sister, of Ian … small moments clipped out of time and perfectly preserved by some odd alchemy of memory, fixed in his mind like an insect in amber.

And forever now he would remember the firelight golden on the sweet bold face of his son.

You told me once that your father said that everyone needs a history, the note inside read. This is mine. Will you keep it with yours?

He shook his head, wordless. No sight, no sound or smell or touch. There were no images at all to convey what it had been like to meet himself.

“Slan leat, a charaid chòir,” she said, softly. “Luck to you, dear friend.”

She had set out thinking only to find her father; she hadn’t realized that she might discover a whole new family in the process.

“Oh, my,” Jenny said softly. She lifted her head and looked Brianna in the face, the slanted blue eyes shimmering with what looked like tears. “I am so very glad to see ye—Niece.”

even though everything in the world seemed set on killin’ him, he didna mean to make it easy for them.

“I hadna thought of you as grown,” he said, letting his hand fall reluctantly away. “I saw the pictures, but still—I had ye in my mind somehow as a wee bairn always—as my babe.

“M’ annsachd—my blessing.”