That's what marriage is good for; it makes a sacrament out of things ye'd otherwise have to confess. Jamie Fraser

While ye sleep in my arms, I can say things to ye that would be daft and silly waking, and your dreams will know the truth of them.

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?

He leaned close, rubbing his bearded cheek against my ear. 'And how about a sweet kiss, now, for the brave lads of the clan MacKenzie? Tulach Ard!' Erin go bragh,' I said rudely, and pushed with all my strength.

I talk to you as I talk to my own soul," he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple. "And Sassenach," he whispered, "Your face is my heart.

This is our time. Until that time stops - for one of us, for both – it is our time. Now. Will you waste it, because you are afraid?

One dictum I had learned on the battlefields of France in a far distant war: You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough.