|
aa6bc72
|
You mustn't hit him again, Grand-pere," Germain said earnestly, breaking the silence. "He's a very good man, and I'm sure he won't take Grannie to bed anymore, now that you're home to do it."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
0bc320a
|
The big Scot had sat by the man's side all night, listening, encouraging, comforting. Grey had stood by the door, not wishing to frighten the man by the sight of his uniform, both surprised and oddly touched at Fraser's gentleness.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
d6de4a9
|
He felt oddly comfortable with the man, he realized, with a feeling of surprise. Part of it was sheer fatigue, of course; all his usual reactions and feelings were numbed by the long night and the strain of watching a man die by inches. The entire night had seemed unreal to Grey; not least was this odd conclusion, wherein he found himself sitting in the dim dawn light of a country tavern, sharing a pitcher of ale with Red Jamie Fraser.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
1616820
|
Grey drank cold water, then splashed it on his face, feeling the shock of it revive him momentarily. He had been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and was feeling slow and stupid. Fraser had been awake for the same twenty-four hours, but gave no apparent sign of being troubled by the fact. He was crawling busily around the spring on his hands and knees, evidently plucking some sort of weed from the water.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
2135e79
|
Grey felt his brows shoot up. "Green plants stop scurvy?" he blurted. "Wherever did you get that notion?"
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
22f721e
|
Shock was giving way to a nervous impulse to laugh. Ken his family? Not likely; and how should he explain that he was the grandson--six times over--of her own brother, Dougal? That he was, in fact, not only Jamie's nephew, but her own as well, if a bit further down the family tree than one might expect?
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
8aa2446
|
He touched his cheek, where the darker line of a scar sliced across the ruddy skin; a memento of the scandalous duel that had sent him into exile at Ardsmuir. "God knows what you did to be sent here, Grey," he said, shaking his head. "But for your own sake, I hope you deserved it! Luck to you!" And with a swirl of blue cloak, he was gone."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
6299335
|
Still, he always approahed the job with a faint reluctance, disliking the manner of it more than the result. Chopping down a tree for timber was straight-forward; girdling it seemed somehow mean-spirited, if practical, leaving the tree to die slowly, unable to bring water from its roots above the ring ot bare, exposed wood. It was not so unpleasant in the fall, at least, when the trees were dormant and leafless already; it must be rather li..
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
eaac1dc
|
Dared he ask about George? Not a direct inquiry, that wouldn't do, but a reference to the family, asking whether his mother had happened to encounter Lady Everett lately, and might he ask to be remembered to her son? He sighed and drew another point on his object. No. His widowed mother was ignorant of the situation, but Lady Everett's husband moved in military circles. His brother's influence would keep the gossip to a minimum, but Lord Ev..
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
6f870f7
|
He sighed, rubbing his cheek against the pillow. He could see Hector still, in his mind's eye. Dark-haired and blue-eyed, tender-mouthed, always smiling.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
e573175
|
Perhaps you are too young to know the power of hate and despair. Quarry's voice spoke in Grey's memory. He was not; he recognized them at once in the depths of Fraser's eyes.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
bea8d18
|
The maxillary muscles run from the sagittal crest at the top of the skull to an insertion on the mandible," I thought, dimly recalling the description from Grey's Anatomy."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
d63a133
|
The greylag mate for life. If ye kill a grown goose, hunting, ye must always wait, for the mate will come to mourn. Then ye must kill the second, too, for otherwise it will grieve itself to death, calling through the skies for the lost one.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
1d73147
|
I am going to be where you are for the rest of our lives," I said firmly. "If that's a week or another forty years." "Longer," he said, and smiled"
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
53cd4b3
|
The most important thing I've learned about women, Sassenach, is which one to choose.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
bf0a46f
|
Then kiss me, Claire" he whispered. "And know that you are more to me than life, and I have no regret." I couldn't answer, but kissed him, first his hand, it's crooked fingers, warm and firm, and the brawny wrist of a sword-wielder, and then his mouth, heaven and promise and anguish all mingled, and the salt of tears in the taste of him."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
a183409
|
Eros Rising
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
3090f82
|
hire a boat and try to catch her up. So long as I board her before we reach Le Havre, it should be all right
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
ab5f985
|
He remembered Jamie's face as they rode in to Helwater, alight as they saw the women on the lawn--with William.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
787c74d
|
He'd suspected it when he'd found Fraser in the chapel with Geneva Dunsany's coffin, just before her funeral. But now he knew, beyond doubt. Knew, too, why Fraser did not desire his freedom.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
183874e
|
But here," he said, so softly I could barely hear him, "here in the dark, with you ... I have no name."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
c69ca0f
|
I knew from the first glimpse that he was dead. But I ran to him". There was no way in which to describe his feelings, because he hadn't had any. The world had simply ceased in that moment, and with it, all his knowledge of how things were done. He simply could not see how life might continue. The first lesson of adult life was it, horribly, did."
|
|
death
mourning
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
8177d46
|
Thus invited, I could hardly not look at him. And in all truth, I wanted to, out of simple curiosity. He was trim and lightly built, but muscular and solid. A little softness at the waist, but no fat--and softly furred with vigorous blond hair, darkening to brown at his crutch. It was a warrior's body; I was well acquainted with those.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
060d01e
|
there was nothing frightening about the dead man; there never is. No matter how ugly the manner in which a man dies, it's only the presence of a suffering human soul that is horrifying; once gone, what is left is only an object.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
b0078c5
|
Oh," I said, very touched. "Thank you."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
71d4fbc
|
It comes for two nights, three--rarely, four--and then it's gone, and I don't see it again for weeks, sometimes months. And then it comes again, and I am enchanted once more." He rolled onto his side in a rustle of bedclothes, regarding me. "Do you see? I do not own this creature--would not, if I could. Its coming is a gift, which I accept with gratitude, but when it's gone, there is no sense of abandonment or deprivation. I'm only glad to ..
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
9f19ca8
|
You've got a big willy, Uncle John," Adam observed. "About the usual for a grown man, I think. Though I believe it's given fairly general satisfaction."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
208ca57
|
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.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
0b1355d
|
buildings; clearly the intention was to nudge
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
9606e13
|
Stand up straight and try not to get fat.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
157308f
|
He had been trying to suppress the feeling Stephan roused in him, but in the end, such things were never controllable--they rose up. Sometimes like the bursting of a mortar shell, sometimes like the inexorable green spike of a crocus pushing through snow and ice--but they rose up. Was he in love with Stephan? There was no question of that. He liked and respected the Hanoverian, but there was no madness in it, no yearning. Did he want Stepha..
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
88484b2
|
You want me to attend your hanging?" His tone must have contained some of the incredulity he felt, for the captain gave him an impatient look. "I'd have sent an engraved invitation, had I time," he said."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
78be063
|
Yes," he said softly. "I know about him. It doesn't"
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
046e3bb
|
He had been attacked once, in camp somewhere in Scotland, in the days after Culloden. Someone had come upon him in the dark, and taken him from behind with an arm across his throat. He had thought he was dead, but his assailant had something else in mind. The man had never spoken, and was brutally swift about his business, leaving him moments later, curled in the dirt behind a wagon, speechless with shock and pain.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
3e21e91
|
I will not mourn him alone tonight," he said roughly, and closed the door." --
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
8e3c527
|
He felt both elated and peaceful, almost valedictory: a strange state of mind to experience in the wake of a funeral. Part of it was Charlie, of course, and the knowledge that he had not failed his dead friend. Beyond that, though, was the knowledge that it lay within his power to do something equally important for the living one. He could keep James Fraser prisoner.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
c6c41dd
|
John--well." He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. "I couldna give him what he wanted--and he is friend enough not to ask it."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
b9d6eb3
|
I don't really know," he said. He glanced at me, one eyebrow raised. "Does that sound unfeeling?" "I couldn't say," I said, a little tartly. "Surely you'd know better than I whether you had feelings for her or not." "I did, yes." He let his head fall back on the pillow, his thick fair hair loose about his shoulders. "Or I do, perhaps. That's why I came, do you see?" "No, I can't say that I do."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
7e38020
|
How long has it been since you last slept with a woman, if you don't mind my asking?" He didn't appear to mind. He frowned a little and scratched his chest thoughtfully. "Oh ... fifteen years? At least that." He glanced at me, his expression altering to one of concern. "Oh. I do apologize." "You do? For what?" I arched one brow. I could think of a number of things he might apologize for, but probably none of those was what he had in mind. "..
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
cd7d75d
|
I meant no offense," he added a moment later, in a softer tone. "I was surprised." I looked at him directly. I was too tired to be tactful. "And a bit jealous, perhaps?"
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
6c1f8de
|
He had a diplomat's face; almost anything could have been going on behind that facade of handsome amiability. I went on staring at him, though, and he let the mask drop--a flash of knowledge lit the light blue eyes, tinged with grudging humor. "So. One more thing that we have in common." I was startled by his acuity, though I shouldn't have been. It's always discomfiting to find that feelings you thought safely hidden are in fact sitting ou..
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
0ec6fe3
|
Don't tell me you didn't think of that when you decided to come here.
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
ef51b0f
|
I thought of it, yes," he said finally. He let his head fall back on the pillow, eyes fixed on the low beamed ceiling. "Still, if I was human enough--or petty enough--to consider that I might offend you by bringing William here, I would ask you to believe that such offense was not my motive in coming."
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
0706cee
|
I believe you," I said, my eyes fixed on the skein. "If only because it seems rather a lot of trouble to go to. What was your motive, though?"
|
|
|
Diana Gabaldon |