Outlander Book Club: The Fiery Cross Chapter 99 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
The chapter starts with Claire seeing a letter from Jenny. She fears that Jenny is berating Jamie again, but it turns out to be a positive letter. Jenny explains that she forgives Jamie for allowing Young Ian to go with the Mohawks. She realizes that Jamie couldn’t have stopped him.
What is it that led to Jenny deciding to forgive Jamie? It turns out she fell off her horse and needed to head to Laoghaire’s place for food and shelter. When she got there, she realized that Laoghaire was with another man. That made Jenny angry for her brother, even though she shouldn’t be angry. After all, Jamie has reunited with Claire and is happy.
It’s just the start of how jealousy isn’t logical. However, Jenny also notes that she’s ashamed of her anger toward her brother, thinking back to how her mom made her promise to look out for Jamie. So, she’s decided she needs to forgive her brother.
That leads to Jamie waking from a dream of Laoghaire. Claire wakes to that dream because Jamie is trying to force himself on Claire. We get a look at what life was like for Jamie and Laoghaire together when they shared a bed.
Jamie notes that he is jealous but he doesn’t understand why at first. He realizes that it’s linked to how Laoghaire was with him in bed. The letter makes it clear that she enjoys sleeping with this new man in her life, but she didn’t like sharing a bed with him. He thought it was bad experiences with other men, but was it also him?
It’s not just jealous but doubt. I get this sense that he’s worried about being a good man, and not just good in bed. Claire can tell him how much she enjoys being with him all she wants, but there’s that niggling voice. That’s not surprising. We all get those doubts when exes move on with other people, especially when there has been some sort of trauma in the relationship, and that’s what I do believe was in the marriage between Jamie and Laoghaire.
One thing that does happen is Claire finally telling Jamie about Laoghaire’s role in the witch trials 20 years ago. Jamie notes that he would have never married Laoghaire if he knew that, but Claire seems to have forgiven her. Claire remembers that Laoghaire was just 16 and possibly naive. Maybe that is naive of Claire, but I also think it’s mightily mature of her to consider Laoghaire’s age.