Outlander Book Club: The Fiery Cross Chapter 48 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

It’s the wedding night, and Claire is ready to go to bed. She’s treated her patients, and she notes that Jemmy’s fever has gone down. He’ll be perfectly fine now that the worst of the cold symptoms have passed.

She is sleeping in a room full of other people. There are plenty of others still up playing cards and talking politics, but she doesn’t see Jamie anywhere. So, she goes to bed alone.

At least, she’s supposed to be alone. During the night, someone starts to play with her feet in the dark. The touches work their way up her legs, and suddenly she jerks and hits the woman sleeping next to her. Claire assumes that it is Jamie touching her, but what if it isn’t?

By hitting the woman next to her, Claire accidentally wakes her. That leads to whoever touched Claire to leave, giving a squeeze on the foot as a way to say goodnight.

There is a flaw in this chapter. We never actually get to find out in the book who touched Claire that night. We can assume that it’s Jamie, but could it have been someone else?

Diana Gabaldon says that it was definitely Jamie, but this is where I do find a flaw in her writings. There are times Gabaldon knows exactly who the other person is or what is going on in her head, but she never writes it down in the books. We’re just left to assume and wonder, and then we get an “of course” response from Gabaldon.

It’s a shame Claire didn’t bring it up. Having Jamie confirm that it was definitely him and not potentially Phillip Wylie would have been appreciated.