Looking for peace? Look for a river.

Hello People of Earth! 👋🏻 Been enjoying Season 8, despite my frequent cursing at W Network's annoying commercial breaks. 🙄 Hope you're all happy, healthy, and having as much fun as you're able to. xo

A model of duty, honor and faith. May she rest in peace.

(photo Atlnaharra)

She’d wanted to go to the Christmas Eve services.   After that…After that, he would ask her, make it formal. She would say yes, he knew. And then…

Why, then, they would come home, to a house dark and private. With themselves alone, on a night of sacrament and secret, with love newly come into the world. And he would lift her in his arms and carry her upstairs, on a night when virginity’s sacrifice was no loss of purity, but rather the birth of everlasting joy. —Roger in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 17

“What if I tell you a story, instead?”  Highlanders loved stories, and Jamie was no exception.

“Oh, aye,” he said, sounding much happier. “What sort of story is it?”

“A Christmas story,” I said, settling myself along the curve of his body. “About a miser named Ebenezer Scrooge.”

“An Englishman, I daresay?”

“Yes,” I said. “Be quiet and listen.”

I could see my own breath as I talked, white in the dim, cold air. The snow was falling heavily outside our shelter; when I paused in the story, I could hear the whisper of flakes against the hemlock branches, and the far-off whine of wind in the trees. –-Jamie & Claire in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 21

“What’s the occasion? For our homecoming?”

She lifted her head from his chest and gave him what he privately classified as A Look.

“For Christmas,” she said.

“What?” He groped blankly, trying to count the days, but the events of the last three weeks had completely erased his mental calendar.

“When?”

“Tomorrow, idiot,” she said with exaggerated patience. —Brianna & Roger in Fiery Cross, Chapter 33

Catholic as many of them were–and nominally Christian as they all were–Highland Scots regarded Christmas primarily as a religious observance, rather than a major festive occasion. Lacking priest or minister, the day was spent much like a Sunday, though with a particularly lavish meal to mark the occasion, and the exchange of small gifts. —Claire in Fiery Cross, Chapter 34

“Aye, well, it is Christmas Eve,” she said, answering his unasked question. “Any man wi’ a home to go to’s in it.” She yawned, pulled off her nightcap, and fluffed her fingers through the wild mass of curly dark hair.

“Yet you seem to have some custom,” he observed. Distant singing came from two floors below, and the parlor had seemed well populated when he passed.

“Och, aye. The desperate ones. I leave them to Maybelle to deal with; dinna like to see them, poor creatures. Pitiful. They dinna really want a woman, the ones who come on Christmas Eve–only a fire to sit by, and folk to sit with.” —Lord John & Nessie in Echo in the Bone, Chapter 24

“Well, that is odd,” Rachel said, turning to look first at her brother, and then at the small clock that graced their rooms. “Who goes a-visiting at nine o’clock on Christmas night? It cannot be a Friend, surely?” For Friends did not keep Christmas and would find the feast no bar to travel, but the Hunters had no connections–not yet–with the Friends of any Philadelphia meeting.

A thump of footsteps on the staircase prevented Denzell’s reply, and an instant later the door of the room burst open. The fur-clad woman stood on the threshold, white as her furs.

“Denny?” she said in a strangled voice. —Rachel & Dottie in Echo in the Bone, Chapter 86

CONGRATULATIONS, CAITRIONA BALFE!!

Do you think Frank was unfaithful to Claire during the war? I always find it suspect when a partner asks the other if he/she has been unfaithful. Did he ask her because he had been cheating on her?

I do think he was unfaithful to Claire - and I agree with your point.

Claire - and by extension, we as readers - have little to no information about what Frank did during his time in the war. We don't see Claire asking him many questions about it.

Maybe she didn't ask because it was awkward between them - they had to find each other again, and after all, that's why they went to Scotland to begin with.

Maybe she didn't ask because she secretly feared what the answer would be.

Which makes it all the more odd that Frank brings this up.

gif @fearlessbalfe