Just the Outlander chapter
We start with Claire still at Louise’s country estate. She’s healing well, but she soon realizes that she will have to head back to Paris. Marcus turns up with a letter addressed to Claire. He’s had it for two weeks but has decided Claire needs to see it. Of course, it’s the letter with the ship name and date of leaving Portugal. That’s the ship Murtagh is on.
Claire realizes that Jamie wouldn’t have left for Spain without the information. He needed that to know when he had to meet with Murtagh and get the port. So, Claire realizes that something has happened to Jamie.
Louise and Marcus know that Jamie hasn’t been around at all. He’s been locked up in the Bastille for dueling.
How long for? As long as the King wishes.
There is some good news, there. At least Claire can petition for Jamie’s release. She needs an audience with the King, though, and the best person to help her get that is Mother Hildegarde. To do that and stand a chance of getting Jamie out of the Bastille, Claire will need to lie with the King.
She’s willing to do that, but when she gets there, he doesn’t seem to want to sleep with her. Nor is he initially on the side of releasing Jamie.
The Duke of Sandringham wants Jamie locked up. He’s not happy Jamie didn’t take the pardon and return to Scotland, believing that Jamie wants to make Culloden happen. Claire is honest for the first time, telling King Louis that she and Jamie are on the opposite side, trying to prevent the restoration. That’s exactly what Louis wanted to hear, making him warm to her request even more.
Before that can happen, he needs one thing of her, and it’s not sex. He takes her to a chamber where men with hoods are stood in a circle. Comte St. Germain and Master Raymond have been accused of witchcraft. Louis believes Claire is La Dame Blanche and can see which one is evil. He wants to get rid of the evil sorceresses in France.
Of course, the Comte isn’t going to make things easy. He makes Louis doubt Claire, suggesting that someone with pure heart will be able to hold a snake. While Claire notes the snake isn’t poisonous, she isn’t inclined to hold it, so she finds another way to prove her innocence and possibly the men’s.
She suggests a poison. Master Raymond makes once, which Claire knows will not have any poison in it at all. Sure enough, she and Master Raymond are able to drink it without trouble.
When it gets to the Comte, her white necklace changes. Somehow, the drink now has a real poison in it and Comte St. Germain is killed.