Outlander Book Club: The Fiery Cross Chapter 11 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

We start the chapter with Roger leaving Joan Findlay and her family. He has her situation on his mind. She clearly struggles to get by, and she has clearly had two husbands who have passed on. What will happen if her sons die while fighting in the militia?

As he passes Jocasta’s camp, he decides to go and see her. He wants Jocasta to do something to help the Findlays. I love that we see Jocasta is more than willing to help, and Roger isn’t the first to come to ask about that. Jamie wants something to happen, showing just how alike Roger and Jamie can be at times.

Jocasta realizes that she has to go about this carefully. Joan is a proud woman who won’t take charity, so Jocasta has to find a way to encourage Joan to take what she has to give.

With that done, Jocasta now wants to talk to Roger. She makes it clear that she won’t leave River Run to Brianna. A wife’s property ends up her husband’s if something happens to the wife. Jocasta points out that there are ways to mitigate that, but she doesn’t want to get the lawyers involved. And it’s clear she wants Roger not to get lawyers involved.

Instead, she’s going to leave the property to Jemmy. If something happens to Jemmy, she’ll leave it to Hamish.

Roger knows what Jocasta means. She’s worried that Roger is only marrying Bree for the inheritance, and this is Jocasta’s way to circumvent that. Naturally, Roger is angry, and he makes that clear to Jocasta and everyone around them.

What he doesn’t realize at the time is that this was just the reaction Jocasta wanted. In fact, the problem with the story from Roger’s point of view is that we don’t really get that sense right away.