Just focusing on the Outlander chapter
We start with Claire learning from Dougal that the marriage needs to be consummated. What I find interesting is that Dougal notes that all their necks could be on the line. At this point, it isn’t just about keeping Claire safe.
Should the marriage between Claire and Jamie be annulled, it sounds like all the Scottish men on the rent party could find themselves in front of Black Jack Randall. They could be tried for treason, trying to circumvent handing an English subject over to BJR. There’s no way that Dougal will want that to happen, so he wants to make sure there’s no way that this marriage can’t be broken up.
We also learn at this point that six weeks have passed since Claire fell through the stones. It’s been six weeks of her trying to find a way to escape, and now she’s landed herself a husband.
Much of the chapter is Claire and Jamie learning more about each other, as well as consummating their marriage. We get some details about Jamie’s family, and I do have to chuckle about how he goes down the rabbit hole of genealogy. There are times that he’s a little like Frank, but Jamie’s rabbit hole is more about his physical connections in the time. He talks of cousins, uncles, and aunts. Frank’s genealogy is about finding out more about past connections that he would have never known.
Frank comes up in Claire’s thoughts a few times. She thinks about her sex life with him, especially with how tame it is. As she is now the teacher with Jamie, she gets a chance to get a little kinkier. She wants to feel some pain because it’s pleasurable, giving us a sense that she trusts Jamie. She doesn’t feel like he will judge her for what she would like to do in the bedroom.
During their bedroom activities, they realize how hungry they are. Claire goes outside, only to see the men cheering. Jamie is the one that ends up going out to get food and alcohol to save her from more embarrassment.
Of course, there’s the ending to the chapter. Claire wakes from a nightmare, and Jamie immediately things that they’re being attacked. Even in the bridal chamber, he’s ready for a fight. We get this hint that he can’t rest easy, knowing that anyone could come to take him at any point. As Claire muses about why he would need a knife in the bed-chamber, I can’t think of how scared he must be with that price on his head.