It is a strange thing, to be a physician who cannot heal the wound of a child’s absence. To know that William, our secret, breathing ghost, is out there, wearing a red coat, fighting a war we are trying to end. Every cannon blast from the distant siege of Yorktown feels like a heartbeat. His heartbeat. Or the final, shuddering gasp of the life we might have had.
Jamie sat by the fire, sharpening his dirk. The shing-shing of stone on steel was a prayer. He was not looking at the blade. He was looking through it, at a boy he’d seen only twice from a distance: once as a golden-haired child in a London garden, and once as a young officer whose eyes held no recognition. outlander s07 m4b
William.
“He has your stubbornness,” I said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “He cut his hand on a broken bottle at Helwater and refused to cry. I watched from the kitchen window. You were mending a fence. You both bled, and neither of you made a sound.” It is a strange thing, to be a
“Aye. And when he does, he will hate me.” His heartbeat