The whole Scene:
“I couldn’t let you go without saying … something. I suppose ‘Good luck’ will do.” I hesitated, words jamming in my throat with the sudden urge to say much more than there was time for. In the end, I said only the important things. “Jamie—I love you. Be careful!”
He didn’t remember Culloden, he said. I wondered suddenly whether that loss of memory extended to the hours just before the battle, when he and I had said farewell. Then I looked into his eyes and knew it did not.
“‘Good luck’ will do,” he said, and his hand tightened on mine, likewise frozen to the current that surged between us. “‘I love ye’ does much better.”
He touched my hand, lifted his own and touched my hair, my face, looking into my eyes as though to capture my image in this moment—just in case it should be his last glimpse of me.
“There may come a day when you and I shall part again,” he said softly, at last, and his fingers brushed my lips, light as the touch of a falling leaf. He smiled faintly. “But it willna be today.”
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