Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
15th Jan 2014 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WRITTENInMYOwnHEARTSBlood #Book8 #OutJUNE10th #PreparationsAndPortents
“Miss Margaret!” Arnold pushed past Jamie as though he wasn’t there—no small feat—and seized Peggy Shippen’s hand in his. “I thought I must come—your cousin? How does he do?”
“He is alive.” Peggy swallowed, her face the color of the beeswax candle she was holding. “Mrs. Fraser is—she says—“ She swallowed again, and Jamie swallowed with her, out of sympathy, knowing all too well what she was thinking of. Tench Bledsoe’s shattered leg bones, red and slimy as an ineptly butchered pig’s. The back of his throat was still bitter with the taste of vomit.
“I—thank you so much for sending Mrs. Fraser to us, sir—I couldn’t think what on earth we were to do. My father’s in Maryland and my mother with her sister in [ ]. My brothers…” She trailed off, looking distraught.
“No, no, my dear—may I call you so?—it is my most fervent concern, to help you—your family, to…protect you.” He hadn’t let go her hands, Jamie noted, and she wasn’t pulling them away.
Jamie glanced covertly from Arnold to Peggy Shippen, then turned away a little, drawing back. It wasn’t hard for them to ignore him; they were focused on each other.
That made matters plain—or at least plainer. Arnold wanted the girl, and wanted her so nakedly that Jamie was slightly ashamed for the man. You couldn’t help lust, but surely a man should have enough control to hide it. _ And no just for the sake of decency, either_, he thought, seeing a certain look of cautious calculation come into Peggy’s face. It was, he thought, the look of a fisherman who has just seen a fat trout swim right under the lure.
He cleared his throat in a pointed manner, and both of them jerked as though he’d run a drawing pin into them.
“My wife says it will be necessary to amputate the injured leg,” he said. “Quickly. She requires a few things—instruments, and the like.” _I need both the large saw and the small lunar one, the set of tenaculae—the long things that look like fishing hooks—and quite a lot of sutures_… He was trying to keep the list in his head, though it made him ill to envision most of the items, thinking of the use they were about to be put to.