Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart,” I said cheerily, seizing the opening. “The more you eat, the more you fart. The more you fart, the better you feel – so let’s have beans for every meal!
Hello,” I said softly, one hand over the butterfly wings that beat inside me.
I’ve spent more than twenty years looking for answers, Roger, and I can tell you only one thing: There aren’t any answers, only choices. I’ve made a number of them myself, and no one can tell me whether they were right or wrong.
Well, that’s the hell of it, isn’t it?” she said, turning away. “You never know, but you have to act anyway, don’t you?
Aye, beg me for mercy, Sassenach. Ye shallna have it, though; not yet.
There aren’t many people like that – who will tell you the truth about themselves and anything else right out. I’ve only met three people like that, I think – four now,” she said, her smile widening to warm him. “There was.
An unaccustomed weed of jealousy sprang up in Jamie’s heart, stinging like nettles. He stamped firmly on it; he was fortunate indeed to know that his son enjoyed a loving relationship with his stepfather. There, that was the weed stamped out. The stamping, though, seemed to have left a small bruised spot on his heart; he could feel it when he breathed.
It’s like a little fortress, where the most private part of you lives – maybe it’s your soul, maybe just that bit that makes you yourself and not anyone else.
The position of sun and moon on the Feast of Beltane” is one, with a list if two hundred paired figures laid out beneath. Similar tables existed for Hogmanay and Midsummer’s Day, and Samhainn, the Feast of All Hallows. The ancient feasts of fire and sun, and Beltane’s sun would rise tomorrow.
What would I do if he forbade me to go? Alternatives raced through my mind, everything from planting the ivory letter-opener between his ribs to burning down the house with him in it. The only idea I rejected absolutely was that of giving in.
But for the hours of the night, I was helpless; powerless to move as a dragonfly in amber.
Pointless to spend too much time in planning, anyway, given the propensity of life to make sudden left-hand turns without warning.
Men hate things to change,” her mother had once casually told her. “Unless it’s their idea, of course. But you can make them think it is their idea, sometimes.
I said I was a virgin, not a monk,” he said, kissing me again. “If I find I need guidance, I’ll ask.
Besides,” he added cynically, “a pair of ballocks may bring a man more sorrow than joy – though I havena met many who’d wish them gone, for all that.
What if, this time, you fall?
Dear God,” he said, still softly. “I couldna look at ye, Sassenach, and keep my hands from you, nor have ye near me, and not want ye.
I stood in front of him in nothing but my shoes and gartered rose-silk stockings.
I prayed all the way up that hill yesterday; not for you to stay; I didna think that would be right. I prayed I’d be strong enough to send ye away. I said, “Lord, if I’ve ever had courage in my life before, let me have it now. Let me be brave enough and not fall to my knees and beg her to stay.
I can hear. Hear them. It. Don’t you hear?” It was a struggle to speak, to form coherent thoughts. The call here was different; not the beehive sound of Craigh na Dun, but a hum like the vibration of the air following the striking of a great bell. I could feel it ringing in the long bones of my arms, echoing through pectoral girdle and spine. Jamie.