Outlander Book Club: The Fiery Cross Chapter 53 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
The chapter starts with everyone getting to Jocasta’s room. She and Duncan were attacked, and she explains that there were two men. One of them stayed far away in fear of being recognized, and the other was an Irishman.
It’s clear who the Irishman was, and that means we know who the second man was. Stephen Bonnet had to be the Irishman, and that means Wylie was the other. It would make sense since Jocasta would certainly recognize Wylie just from the sound of his voice or even the way he moved around the room.
Bonnet wanted the Frenchman’s gold, which leads to the story of the gold. We knew there was gold. That was brought up in Voyager. This is just the first time that we get the full story and find out what happened to it.
The gold came too late to help with the Jacobite rebellion. It arrived in March, and Claire notes that the cause had been lost at that point. It needed to have arrived in January at the latest.
Jocasta explains that her husband Hector, her brother Dougal, and a third man decided to split the gold in three. They all made oaths to each other, and Jocasta was bound through her marriage to Hector. With the gold, Hector and Jocasta decided to head to the colonies, but not all of Jocasta’s three daughters could come with her.
She left her two eldest, but her daughter with Hector came with them. They were stopped on the way to the coast, which is where they’re stopped by soldiers. It was clear the soldiers would find the gold, so Hector fired his pistol. He was supposed to hit the soldier holding his daughter, but he hit his daughter in the head instead. Hector pulled Jocasta into the coach and they rode off.
Hector used the gold to buy River Run and everything connected to it. While Jocasta has some ill-will for her third husband, she does want to make sure River Run goes to family. That’s why she wants it to go to Brianna or Brianna’s son, Jemmy.
We now get back to when the Irishman attacked Jocasta. He refused to believe that there was no gold at River Run, and he was willing to cut parts of Duncan’s body off. Jocasta finally shares that the gold is buried until the kitchen shed, which is why Bonnet and Wylie headed there. The idea for Jocasta was for them to find the body and then she could get help.
Jocasta believes that the men dropped their lantern in shock, setting fire to the shed accidentally. She also makes it clear that the gold definitely isn’t there. She was just biding herself time.