Outlander Book Club: Book 2, Chapter 28 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
The chapter starts at Louise’s country home. She’s returned from Paris and is back in her state of depression. That’s what she’s describing based on experience. That loss of energy and purpose is leading to her spiraling downward.
Part of it is that she doesn’t have Jamie. She’s still angry at him for what he did. That is until she learns what happened to Fergus. When Fergus is picked on by a stable boy, Claire sees a rip in his pants and there’s a brand on his buttock. It’s clear that this is from Black Jack Randall.
It all starts to fall into place, as Fergus tells Claire everything that happened that day. Fergus had been spending some time with the women at the brothel while Jamie paid off his warehouse manager’s bill. BJR walked in and immediately took a liking to Fergus. Poor Fergus had no choice.
What makes matters worse is that he’s been used before, but not as badly as this. Fergus screaming out caught Jamie’s attention, and that’s when the fight between the two men started. Claire realizes that Jamie had broken his promise to defend Fergus’s honor.
That doesn’t make her change her mind about Jamie for now, though. He’s in Spain, so it’s not like she can do anything.
When he does turn up at Louise’s country home, he shares that the plan mostly worked out. Because of Jamie’s seasickness, he and Murtagh switched places. Murtagh made sure Jamie wasn’t thrown overboard and the port was sold. It doesn’t matter, though. St. Germain’s death has led to the end of that business proposition.
All that matters is the money Jamie borrowed from Monsieur Duverney has been repaid in full. That’s one debt off their backs.
Claire also decides to forgive Jamie. She hears how Jamie was in the Bastile sure that Claire had died in the woods. When he learned Claire hadn’t died there, he was sure she would die later. He was surprised to find out that Claire was alive and that she had helped arrange his release from the Bastile. He is sure what she did to get him out.
It seems Claire keeps the full truth from Jamie, allowing him to believe that King Louis was happy with St. Germain’s death. It’s only at the end of the chapter that we find out Claire did sleep with the King, and it was completely transactional in purpose. She left with her head held high, knowing that her husband would be freed.
The chapter also gives us a chance to find out what happened with the baby. She was called Faith and baptized by Mother Hildegarde. What’s not mentioned in the book but is in the show is that stillborn babies wouldn’t have been baptized.
Baptisms are for the living. However, if there is doubt in whether a baby is alive or dead, a baby would have been baptized. I’ll get to this when it comes to the adaptation section.