The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle (337 page)

“Eugh!” I said, in complete revulsion at the resultant cascade of slime over my upper lip. My hand seemed far off and insubstantial, but I made the effort to raise it, swiping clumsily at my face.

“Be still, Sassenach; I’ll take care of ye.” There was a definite note of amusement in the voice, which irritated me enough to open my eyes again. I caught a brief glimpse of Jamie’s face, intent on mine, before vision vanished once again in the folds of an immense white handkerchief.

He wiped my face thoroughly, ignoring my strangled noises of protest and impending suffocation, then held the cloth to my nose.

“Blow,” he said.

I did as he said. Rather to my surprise, it helped quite a lot. I could think more or less coherently, now that my head was unclogged.

Jamie smiled down at me. His hair was rumpled and stiff with dried salt, and there was a wide abrasion on his temple, an angry dark red against the bronzed skin. He seemed not to be wearing a shirt, but had a blanket of some kind draped about his shoulders.

“Do ye feel verra bad?” he asked.

“Horrible,” I croaked in reply. I was also beginning to be annoyed at being alive, after all, and being required to take notice of things again. Hearing the rasp in my voice, Jamie reached for a jug of water on the table by my bed.

I blinked in confusion, but it really was a bed, not a berth or a hammock. The linen sheets contributed to the overwhelming impression of whiteness that had first engulfed me. This was reinforced by the whitewashed walls and ceiling, and the long white muslin draperies that bellied in like sails, rustling in the breeze from the open windows.

The flickering light came from reflections that shimmered over the ceiling; apparently there was water close by outside, and sun shining on it. It seemed altogether cozier than Davy Jones’s locker. Still, I felt a brief moment of intense regret for the sense of infinite peace. I had experienced in the heart of the wave—a regret made more keen by the slight movement that sent a bolt of white agony up my leg.

“I think your leg is broken, Sassenach,” Jamie told me unnecessarily. “Ye likely shouldna move it much.”

“Thanks for the advice,” I said, through gritted teeth. “Where in bloody hell are we?”

He shrugged briefly. “I dinna ken. It’s a fair-sized house, is all I could say. I wasna taking much note when they brought us in. One man said the place is called Les Perles.” He held the cup to my lips and I swallowed gratefully.

“What happened?” So long as I was careful not to move, the pain in my leg was bearable. Automatically, I placed my fingers under the angle of my jaw to check my pulse; reassuringly strong. I wasn’t in shock; my leg couldn’t be badly fractured, much as it hurt.

Jamie rubbed a hand over his face. He looked very tired, and I noticed that his hand trembled with fatigue. There was a large bruise on his cheek, and a line of dried blood where something had scratched the side of his neck.

“The topmast snapped, I think. One of the spars fell and knocked ye overboard. When ye hit the water, ye sank like a stone, and I dived in after you. I got hold of you—and the spar, too, thank God. Ye had a bit of rigging tangled round your leg, dragging ye down, but I managed to get that off.” He heaved a deep sigh, and rubbed his head.

“I just held to ye; and after a time, I felt sand under my feet. I carried ye ashore, and a bit later, some men found us and brought us here. That’s all.” He shrugged.

I felt cold, despite the warm breeze coming in through the windows.

“What happened to the ship? And the men? Ian? Lawrence?”

“Safe, I think. They couldna reach us, with the mast broken—by the time they’d rigged a makeshift sail, we were long gone.” He coughed roughly, and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “But they’re safe; the men who found us said they’d seen a small ketch go aground on a mud flat a quarter-mile south of here; they’ve gone down to salvage and bring back the men.”

He took a swallow of water, swished it about his mouth, and going to the window, spat it out.

“I’ve sand in my teeth,” he said, grimacing, as he returned. “And my ears. And my nose, and the crack of my arse, too, I shouldna wonder.”

I reached out and took his hand again. His palm was heavily calloused, but still showed the tender swelling of rising blisters, with shreds of ragged skin and raw flesh, where earlier blisters had burst and bled.

“How long were we in the water?” I asked, gently tracing the lines of his swollen palm. The tiny “C” at the base of his thumb was faded almost to invisibility, but I could still feel it under my finger. “Just how long did you hold on?”

“Long enough,” he said simply.

He smiled a little, and held my hand more tightly, despite the soreness of his own. It dawned on me suddenly that I wasn’t wearing anything; the linen sheets were smooth and cool on my bare skin, and I could see the swell of my nipples, rising under the thin fabric.

“What happened to my clothes?”

“I couldna hold ye up against the drag of your skirts, so I ripped them off,” he explained. “What was left didna seem worth saving.”

“I don’t suppose so,” I said slowly, “but Jamie—what about you? Where’s your coat?”

He shrugged, then let his shoulders drop, and smiled ruefully.

“At the bottom of the sea with my shoon, I expect,” he said. And the pictures of Willie and Brianna there, too.

“Oh, Jamie. I’m so sorry.” I reached for his hand and held it tightly. He looked away, and blinked once or twice.

“Aye, well,” he said softly. “I expect I will remember them.” He shrugged again, with a lopsided smile. “And if not, I can look in the glass, no?” I gave a laugh that was half a sob; he swallowed painfully, but went on smiling.

He glanced down at his tattered breeches then, and seeming to think of something, leaned back and worked a hand into the pocket.

“I didna come away completely empty-handed,” he said, pulling a wry face. “Though I would as soon it had been the pictures I kept, and lost these.”

He opened his hand, and I saw the gleam and glitter in his ruined palm. Stones of the first quality, cut and faceted, suitable for magic. An emerald, a ruby—male, I supposed—a great fiery opal, a turquoise blue as the sky I could see out the window, a golden stone like sun trapped in honey, and the strange crystal purity of Geilie’s black diamond.

“You have the adamant,” I said, touching it gently. It was still cool to the touch, in spite of being worn so close to his body.

“I have,” he said, but he was looking at me, not at the stone, a slight smile on his face. “What is it an adamant gives ye? The knowledge of joy in all things?”

“So I was told.” I lifted my hand to his face and stroked it lightly, feeling hard bone and lively flesh, warm to the touch, and joyful to behold above all things.

“We have Ian,” I said softly. “And each other.”

“Aye, that’s true.” The smile reached his eyes then. He dropped the stones in a glittering heap on the table and leaned back in his chair, cradling my hand between his.

I relaxed, feeling a warm peace begin to steal over me, in spite of the aches and scrapes and the pain in my leg. We were alive, safe and together, and very little else mattered; surely not clothes, nor a fractured tibia. Everything would be managed in time—but not now. For now, it was enough only to breathe, and look at Jamie.

We sat in a peaceful silence for some time, watching the sunlit curtains and the open sky. It might have been ten minutes later, or as much as an hour, when I heard the sound of light footsteps outside, and a delicate rap at the door.

“Come in,” Jamie said. He sat up straighter, but didn’t let go of my hand.

The door opened, and a woman stepped in, her pleasant face lit by welcome, tinged with curiosity.

“Good morning,” she said, a little shyly. “I must beg your pardon, not to have waited upon you before; I was in the town, and learned of your—arrival”—she smiled at the word—“only when I returned, just now.”

“We must thank ye, Madame, most sincerely, for the kind treatment afforded to us,” Jamie said. He rose and bowed formally to her, but kept hold of my hand. “Your servant, ma’am. Have ye word of our companions?”

She blushed slightly, and bobbed a curtsy in reply to his bow. She was young, only in her twenties, and seemed unsure quite how to conduct herself under the circumstances. She had light brown hair, pulled back in a knot, fair pink skin, and what I thought was a faint West Country accent.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “My servants brought them back from the ship; they’re in the kitchen now, being fed.”

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “That’s terribly kind of you.”

She blushed rosily with embarrassment.

“Not at all,” she murmured, then glanced shyly at me. “I must beg your pardon for my lack of manners, ma’am,” she said. “I am remiss in not introducing myself. I am Patsy Olivier—Mrs. Joseph Olivier, that is.” She looked expectantly from me to Jamie, clearly expecting reciprocation.

Jamie and I exchanged a glance. Where, exactly, were we? Mrs. Olivier was English, that was clear enough. Her husband’s name was French. The bay outside gave no clue; this could be any of the Windward Isles—Barbados, the Bahamas, the Exumas, Andros—even the Virgin Islands. Or—the thought struck me—we might have been blown south by the hurricane, and not north; in which case, this might even be Antigua—in the lap of the British Navy!—or Martinique, or the Grenadines … I looked at Jamie and shrugged.

Our hostess was still waiting, glancing expectantly from one to the other of us. Jamie tightened his hold on my hand and drew a deep breath.

“I trust ye willna think this an odd question, Mistress Olivier—but could ye tell me where we are?”

Mrs. Olivier’s brows rose to the edge of her widow’s peak, and she blinked in astonishment.

“Well … yes,” she said. “We call it Les Perles.”

“Thank you,” I put in, seeing Jamie taking breath to try again, “but what we mean is—what island is this?”

A broad smile of understanding broke out on her round pink face.

“Oh, I see!” she said. “Of course, you were cast away by the storm. My husband was saying last night that he’d never seen such a dreadful blow at this time of year. What a mercy it is that you were saved! But you came from the islands to the south, then?”

The south. This couldn’t be Cuba. Might we have come as far as St. Thomas, or even Florida? We exchanged a quick glance, and I squeezed Jamie’s hand. I could feel the pulse beating in his wrist.

Mrs. Olivier smiled indulgently. “You are not on an island at all. You are on the mainland; in the Colony of Georgia.”

“Georgia,” Jamie said. “America?” He sounded slightly stunned, and no wonder. We had been blown at least six hundred miles by the storm.

“America,” I said softly. “The New World.” The pulse beneath my fingers had quickened, echoing my own. A new world. Refuge. Freedom.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Olivier, plainly having no idea what the news meant to us, but still smiling kindly from one to the other. “It is America.”

Jamie straightened his shoulders and smiled back at her. The clean bright air stirred his hair like kindling flames.

“In that case, ma’am,” he said, “my name is Jamie Fraser.” He looked then at me, eyes blue and brilliant as the sky behind him, and his heart beat strong in the palm of my hand.

“And this is Claire,” he said. “My wife.”

To my children,
Laura Juliet,
Samuel Gordon,
and Jennifer Rose,
Who gave me the heart, the blood, and the bones of this book.

Acknowledgments

The author’s deepest thanks to:

Jackie Cantor, as always, for being the rare and marvelous sort of editor who thinks it’s all right if a book is long as long as it’s good; my husband, Doug Watkins, for his literary eye, his marginal notes (e.g., “nipples
again
?”), and the jokes he insists I steal from him to give to Jamie Fraser; my elder daughter, Laura, who says, “If you come talk to my class about writing again, just talk about books and don’t tell them about whale penises, okay?”; my son, Samuel, who walks up to total strangers in the park and says, “Have you read my mother’s book?”; my younger daughter, Jenny, who says, “Why don’t you wear makeup like on your book covers
all
the time, Mommy?”; Margaret J. Campbell, scholar; Barry Fodgen, english poet; and Pindens Cinola Oleroso Loventon Greenpeace Ludovic, dog; for generously allowing me to use their personae as the basis for the excesses of imagination (Mr. Fodgen wishes to note for the record that his dog Ludo has never actually tried to copulate with anyone’s leg, wooden or not, but does understand the concept of artistic license); Perry Knowlton, who as well as being an excellent literary agent is also a fount of knowledge about bowlines, mainsails, and matters nautical, as well as the niceties of French grammar and the proper way to gut a deer; Robert Riffle, noted authority on what plants grow where, and what they look like while doing so; Kathryn (whose last name was either Boyle or Frye; all I remember is that it had to do with cooking), for the useful information on tropical diseases, particularly the picturesque habits of loa loa worms; Michael Lee West, for detailed descriptions of Jamaica, including regional dialect and folklore anecdotes; Dr. Mahlon West, for advice on typhoid fever; William Cross, Paul Block (and Paul’s father), and Chrystine Wu (and Chrystine’s parents), for invaluable assistance with Chinese vocabulary, history, and cultural attitudes; my father-in-law, Max Watkins, who, as always, provided useful comments on the appearance and habits of horses, including which way they face when the wind is blowing; Peggy Lynch, for wanting to know what Jamie would say if he saw a picture of his daughter in a bikini; Lizy Buchan, for telling me the story about her husband’s ancestor who escaped Culloden; Dr. Gary Hoff, for medical detail; Fay Zachary, for lunch and critical comment; Sue Smiley, for critical reading and suggesting the blood vow; David Pijawka, for the materials on Jamaica and his most poetic description of what the air feels like after a Caribbean rainstorm; Iain MacKinnon Taylor, and his brother Hamish Taylor, for their most helpful suggestions and corrections of Gaelic spelling and usages; and as always, the various members of the CompuServe Literary Forum, including Janet McConnaughey, Marte Brengle, Akua Lezli Hope, John L. Myers, John E. Simpson, Jr., Sheryl Smith, Alit, Norman Shimmel, Walter Hawn, Karen Pershing, Margaret Ball, Paul Solyn, Diane Engel, David Chaifetz, and many others, for being interested, providing useful discussion, and laughing in the right places.