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513657b
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The obvious--to allow Jamie to see the boy." "And the other obvious--to allow you to see Jamie."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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f04aaf9
|
You then challenged him, to--" He halted suddenly and stared hard at Grey. "Ostensibly," he said, more slowly, "ye challenged him to preserve your honor, to refute the slur of sodomy." His lips compressed into a tight line. "Ostensibly," Grey echoed. "Why the bloody hell else would I have done it?" Fraser's eyes searched his face. Grey felt the touch of the other man's gaze, an odd sensation, but kept his own face composed. Or hoped he did...
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Diana Gabaldon |
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4ff96f5
|
Jamie has held my life in his hands for a good many years now," he answered softly. "I will trust him with William's." "And what if Willie remembers a groom named MacKenzie better than you think? Or happens to take a good look at his own face and Jamie's?" "Twelve-year-old boys are not remarkable for their acute perception," Grey said dryly. "And I think that if a boy has lived all his life in the secure belief that he is the ninth Earl of ..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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7aeb5d0
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holes in his back that he
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Diana Gabaldon |
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d063866
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I did sometimes wonder what he saw in you," he said, his tone deliberately light. "Jamie." "Oh, you did? How flattering." I sniffed, and blew my nose. "When he began to speak of you, both of us thought you dead," he pointed out. "And while you are undoubtedly a handsome woman, it was never of your looks that he spoke." To my surprise, he picked up my hand and held it lightly. "You have his courage," he said. That made me laugh, if only half..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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8e1376b
|
Slightly shorter than the common height, Grey found himself at a disadvantage in crowds.
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Diana Gabaldon |
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04f53d5
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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 I had to admit that I had seen no trace of either recklessness or cruelty in his character. On the contrary, he had struck me as a sensitive, kindly, and honorable man--or at least he had, before I'd found out about his predilections toward Jamie.
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Diana Gabaldon |
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fb6f92a
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He felt shocked--and rather disapproving. He was more shocked still to realize this and did his best to dismiss the feeling; it wasn't his business to be shocked, and even if it were ... well, it had been a very long time since Fraser's wife had died, and he was a man. And an honorable one. Better to marry than burn, they say, he thought cynically. I wouldn't know.
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Diana Gabaldon |
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85c4e46
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A SERIES OF SHORT, SHARP SHOCKS
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Diana Gabaldon |
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8e652c6
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But how shall I tell ye all these things," he said, the line of his mouth twisting. "And then say to you--it is only you I have ever loved? How should you believe me?"
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Diana Gabaldon |
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dfa2eff
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I filled the cups with brandy, sat down again, and fixed John Grey with a narrow eye. "What are you doing here?" I said, without preamble. 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. "John!" Jamie's fist struck the table with a force that rattled the teacups. His cheekbones were flushed dark..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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ad550f9
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He turned to greet me, his face fixed in an expression of formal politeness. He looked, blinked, and then broke into a smile of extraordinary warmth and pleasure. "Mrs. Malcolm!" he exclaimed, seizing my hands. "I am vastly pleased to see you!" "The feeling is entirely mutual," I said, smiling back at him. "I didn't know you were the Governor, last time we met. I'm afraid I was a bit informal." He laughed, his face glowing with the light of..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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4ff9dd7
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May I introduce my husband?" I turned to wave at Jamie, who had been detained in animated conversation with the admiral, but who was now advancing toward us, accompanied by Mr. Willoughby. I turned back to find the Governor gone green as a gooseberry. He stared from Jamie to me, and back again, pale as though confronted by twin specters. Jamie came to a stop beside me, and inclined his head graciously toward the Governor. "John," he said so..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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d7cec5c
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I lay still, wondering exactly what was the matter with me. Or rather, not what, but why. I knew by now what it was, all right; it was jealousy. I was indeed jealous; an emotion I hadn't felt for some years, and was appalled to feel now. I
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Diana Gabaldon |
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8f79977
|
Lord John had been nothing but courtesy itself to me. More than that, he had been intelligent, thoughtful--thoroughly charming, in fact. And listening to him making intelligent, thoughtful, charming conversation with Jamie knotted my insides and made me clench my hands under cover of the quilt. You are an idiot, I told myself savagely.
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Diana Gabaldon |
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fcc8564
|
He took my arm, and bowed formally. "And may I have the pleasure to present to you my wife, Claire?" he said aloud, shifting effortlessly into French. "Claire?" The Governor looked wildly at me. "Claire?" "Er, yes," I said, hoping he wasn't going to faint. He looked very much as though he might, though I had no idea why the revelation of my Christian name ought to affect him so strongly."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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ba81b1f
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I glanced back over my shoulder to see the Governor, shaking hands mechanically with the new arrival, staring after us with a face like white paper.
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Diana Gabaldon |
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2ab8242
|
I'm sorry; I had meant to offer you my condolences on the loss of your wife," I said, rather formally. He looked surprised for a moment, then bowed his head in acknowledgment, matching my formality. "It is a coincidence that you should say so at the moment," he said. "I had just been thinking of her."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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4b0323b
|
Do you miss her greatly--your wife?" I felt a bit hesitant about asking, but he didn't seem to find the question intrusive."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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1e57d0f
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Lord John's response to the revelation of my identity was both puzzling and disturbing; you would think the man had seen a ghost. I squinted at my violet reflection, admiring the glitter of the black-and-gold fish at my throat, but failed to see anything unsettling in my appearance.
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Diana Gabaldon |
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8b40b67
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When we met, that night aboard the Porpoise--I'm glad you didn't know who I was. I ... liked you. Then.
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Diana Gabaldon |
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5980374
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He stood for a second, polite, remote. Then the mask dropped away. "I liked you, too," he said quietly. "Then."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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f17cb21
|
If Jamie could take Lord John Grey as a lover, and hide it from me, he wasn't remotely the man I thought he was. There had to be some other explanation.
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Diana Gabaldon |
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0a184e4
|
It was another hour before the door opened again, this time to admit the Governor. He was still handsome and neat as a white camellia, but definitely beginning to turn brown round the edges. I set the untouched glass of brandy down and got to my feet to face him. "Where is Jamie?" "Still being questioned by Captain Jacobs, the militia commander." He sank into his chair, looking bemused. "I had no notion he spoke French so remarkably well."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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e7a226c
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I told you I had feelings for my wife," he said softly. "I did. Affection. Familiarity. Loyalty. We had known each other all her life; our fathers had been friends; I had known her brother. She might well have been my sister." "And was she satisfied with that--to be your sister?" He gave me a glance somewhere between anger and interest. "You cannot be at all a comfortable woman to live with." He shut his mouth, but couldn't leave it there. ..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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ec35828
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As a rule of thumb, four consecutive lines of dialogue is about as much as you want to have without a tag.
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sex
writing
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Diana Gabaldon |
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8e131b0
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Then came the sound of a single pair of footsteps, and then the whoosh and creak of someone settling heavily into a chair. There was silence for a moment. Then Lord John said "You can get up now, if you wish. I am supposing that you are not in fact prostrate with shock," he added, ironically. "Somehow I suspect that a mere murder would not be sufficient to discompose a woman who could deal single-handedly with a typhoid epidemic."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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0dbc090
|
He was leaning on his desk, chin in his hands, staring at me. "There are shocks," I said precisely, smoothing back my damp curls and giving him an eyeball, "and then there are shocks. If you know what I mean." He looked surprised; then a flicker of understanding came into his expression."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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d0aa1db
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He reached into the drawer of his desk, and pulled out my fan, white silk embroidered with violets. "This is yours, I suppose? I found it in the corridor." His mouth twisted wryly as he looked at me. "I see. I suppose, then, you will have some notion of how your appearance earlier this evening affected me." "I doubt it very much," I said."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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bb6fd2c
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I knew he had been married," he corrected. He dropped his hands, fiddling aimlessly with the small objects that littered his desk. "He told me--or gave me to understand, at least--that you were dead." Grey picked up a small silver paperweight, and turned it over and over in his hands, eyes fixed on the gleaming surface. A large sapphire was set in it, winking blue in the candlelight. "Has he never mentioned me?" he asked softly. I wasn't su..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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6cd3b18
|
You have to understand," I said. "He--I--we were separated by the war, the Rising. Each of us thought the other was dead. I found him again only--my God, was it only four months ago?"
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Diana Gabaldon |
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862da5b
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He noticed my slight shifting and rose at once himself, donning his banyan before fetching my own dressing gown--which, I saw with a sense of unease, some kindly hand had hung over a chair to warm before the fire. "Where did that come from?" I asked, nodding at the silk robe he held for me. "From your bedroom, I assume." He frowned at me for a moment before discerning what I meant. "Oh. Mrs. Figg brought it in when she built the fire." "Oh,..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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aa42c04
|
Grey moved a knight and sat back, rubbing the back of his neck, smiling to himself at the effect of his move. He was a good-looking man; slight and fine-boned, but with a strong, clear-cut face and a beautiful, sensitive mouth that many a woman had no doubt envied. Grey was even better at guarding his face than Jamie was; I hadn't yet seen an incriminating look from him. I'd seen one once, though, in Jamaica, and wasn't in any doubt about t..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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2802478
|
Claire?" he said, a question in his voice. I stopped, hand on the doorknob, feeling quite queer; he'd never called me by my name before. It took a small effort to look over my shoulder at him, but when I did, I found him smiling. "Think of the deer," he said gently. "My dear." I nodded, wordless, and made my escape. Only later, after I had washed--vigorously--dressed, and had a restorative cup of tea with brandy in it, did I make sense of t..
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Diana Gabaldon |
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30c8d6d
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I walked down the hallway, my steps muffled by the long Turkey carpet that covered the parquet. There was an indistinguishable murmur of male voices ahead. I turned a corner into a shorter corridor and saw a door ahead from which light spilled--that must be the Governor's private office. Inside, I heard Jamie's voice.
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Diana Gabaldon |
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d21730a
|
Oh, God, John!" he said. I stopped dead, halted much more by the tone of that voice than by the words--it was broken with an emotion I had seldom heard from him. Walking very quietly, I drew closer. Framed in the half-open door was Jamie, head bowed as he pressed Lord John Grey tight in a fervent embrace. I stood still, completely incapable of movement or speech. As I watched, they broke apart."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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fd42153
|
There was plenty of the infusion left. I poured another cup and held it out to Lord John. Surprised, he sat upright and took it from me. "And now that you've come, and seen him--do you still have feelings?" I said. He stared at me for a moment, eyes unblinking in the candlelight. "I do, yes." Hand steady as a rock, he picked up the cup and drank. "God help me," he added, so casual as almost to sound offhand."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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6073de9
|
I ... am not quite sure, to tell you the truth. Perhaps it is only an effort to reconcile my memories of last night with the ... er ... actuality of the experience?
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Diana Gabaldon |
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463c313
|
You didn't know that Jamie was married?" He blinked, but not in time to keep me from seeing a small grimace of pain, as though someone had struck him suddenly across the face."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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ae23696
|
The lines of stress in Grey's face eased a little. "I see," he said slowly. "So--you have not seen him since--my God, that's twenty years!" He stared at me, dumbfounded. "And four months? Why--how--" He shook his head, brushing away the questions."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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cdaf55c
|
Well, that's of no consequence just now. But he did not tell you--that is--has he not told you about Willie?" I stared at him blankly. "Who's Willie?" Instead of explaining, he bent and opened the drawer of his desk. He pulled out a small object and laid it on the desk, motioning me to come closer."
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Diana Gabaldon |
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0c7c6d9
|
usually went to the trouble of separating these from their original possessors before presenting them to me--but then the fur stirred, and a pair of bright eyes peered out of the tangled mass. "My dog's hurt," the man announced brusquely. He set"
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Diana Gabaldon |
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ec7fae0
|
I lifted my futile hand and slammed it hard against the rail. I did it again, and again, scarcely feeling the sting of the blows, in a frenzy of furious rage and grief. "Stop that!" a voice spoke behind me, and a hand seized my wrist, preventing me from slapping the rail yet again. "Let go!" I struggled, but his grip was too strong. "Stop," he said again, firmly. His other arm came around my waist, and he pulled me back, away from the rail...
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Diana Gabaldon |
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732e115
|
Who--" My voice was hoarse with shock, and I had to stop and clear my throat. "Who is his mother?" Grey hesitated, eyeing me closely, then shrugged slightly. "Was. She's dead."
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Diana Gabaldon |