Do ye not understand?"he said, in near desparation. "I would lay the world at your feet, Claire-and I have nothing to give ye!" He honestly thought it mattered.

For I had come back, and I dreamed once more in the cool air of the Highlands. And the voice of my dream still echoed through ears and heart, repeated with the sound of Brianna's sleeping breath. "You are mine," it had said. "Mine. And I will not let you go.

Men go where they will, they do as they must; it is not a woman's part to bid them to stay, nor yet to reproach them for being what they are-or for not coming back.

Deftly whipping a small tuning fork from his pocket, he struck it smartly against a pillar and held it next to Jamie's left ear. Jamie rolled his eyes heavenward, but shrugged and obligingly sang a note. The little man jerked back as though he'd been shot.

Am I a man? To want you so badly that nothing else matters? To see you, and know I would sacrifice honor or family or life itself to lie wi' you, even though ye'd left me?

Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.

I had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, thought, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; rather it was a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. I am yours, it said. And if you will have me, then.