Jealous men

Jamie in DoA

“I had­na thought ever to be so jeal­ous of a dead man,” he whis­pered at last. “I should­na have thought it possible.”“Of a dead man?” My own voice rose slight­ly, with aston­ish­ment, as it final­ly dawned on me. “Of Frank?”He lay still, half on top of me. His hand touched the bones of my face, hesitant.“Who else? I have been worm-eat­en wi’ it, all these days of rid­ing. I see his face in my mind, wak­ing and sleep­ing. Ye did say he looked like Jack Ran­dall, no?”I gath­ered him tight against myself, press­ing his head down so that his ear was near my mouth. Thank God I hadn’t men­tioned the ring to him—but had my face, my trai­tor­ous, trans­par­ent face, some­how giv­en away that I thought of it?“How?” I whis­pered to him, squeez­ing hard. “How could you think of such a thing?”He broke loose, ris­ing on one elbow, his hair falling down over my face in a mass of flam­ing shad­ows, the fire­light spark­ing gold and crim­son through it.“How could I not?” he demand­ed. “Ye heard her, Claire; ye ken well what she said to me!”“Brianna?”“She said she would glad­ly see me in hell, and sell her own soul to have her father back—her real father.” He swal­lowed; I heard the sound of it, above the mur­mur of dis­tant voices.“I keep think­ing he would not have made such a mis­take. He would have trust­ed her; he would have known that she…I keep think­ing that Frank Ran­dall was a bet­ter man than I am. She thinks so.” His hand fal­tered, then set­tled on my shoul­der, squeez­ing tight. “I thought…perhaps ye felt the same, Sassenach.”

From Franks Letter in DoA

Fraser—shall I curse him for steal­ing my wife, or bless him for giv­ing me my daugh­ter? Though like­ly this is just the prod­uct of jeal­ousy and imagination—I know what the bas­tard looks like, well enough; I see his face on my daugh­ter, day by day! I can almost feel him, some­times, look­ing over my shoul­der, stand­ing across the room. Hadn’t thought of this before—do you sup­pose I’ll meet him in the sweet by-and-by, if there is one? Should we meet as friends, I won­der, with the sins of the flesh behind us? Or end for­ev­er locked in some Celtic hell, with our hands wrapped round each other’s throat?Whoever he was, when­ev­er he was, I want­ed noth­ing more in life than to see him—and to kill him.

All rights for the Pic­ture of Jamie go to the right­ful owner Starz
Excer­pts and Quo­te by Diana Gabal­don from “Drums of Autumn“
I own not­hing but the editing