Tell him I hate him to his guts and the marrow of his bones!

It's only that ye looked so beautiful, wi' the fire on your face, and your hair waving in the wind. I wanted to remember it.

It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.

Home is the place where they have to take you in

This was nonsense, he thought. The need of her was a physical thing, like the thirsty of a sailor becalmed for weeks on the sea. He'd felt the need before, often, often, in their years apart. But why now? She was safe; he knew where she was - was it only the exhaustion of the past weeks and days, or perhaps the weakness of creeping age that made his bones ache, as though she had in fact been torn from his body, as God had made Eve from Adam's rib?

No wonder men got impervious to superficial pain, I thought. It came from this habit of hammering each other incessantly.

I always thought it would be a simple matter to lie wi' a woman, he said softly. And yet... I want to fall on my face at your feet and worship you"-he dropped the towel and reached out, taking me by the shoulders-"and still I want to force ye to your knees before me, and hold ye there wi' me hands tangled in your hair, and your mouth at my service...and I want both things at the same time, Sassenach.