Outlander Book Club: An Echo in the Bone Chapter 78 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Jamie and Jenny talking. Jamie needs to see Laoghaire to see who she shares a bed with. He thinks back to his wedding to her and notes that he didn’t really want to go through with it. He did this for Jenny and for Laoghaire. Meanwhile, Jenny was setting Jamie up with Laoghaire for Jamie’s sake. She wanted him to remarry and love again.

Claire walks in on the siblings talking. She isn’t angry that Jamie wants to see who Laoghaire is with now. Maybe she’s confident in how Jamie feels about her and Laoghaire, or maybe it’s just that she understands.

When Jamie gets to Laoghaire’s house, he meets the man but doesn’t realize it. He thinks the man is a servant.

When he talks to Laoghaire, she explains that she married Jamie because he needed her. She thought he had loved her once upon a time. When he took the beating for her, she believed that was his way of showing that. It was a huge sign that he cared, and it’s easy to see why a 16-year-old girl of the time would believe that.

She even thought that Jamie only married Claire because of Dougal. She thought that Jamie still loved her. Then they got married, and Laoghaire realized the truth. Jamie never did love her, and that hurt. I can empathize with that. Finding out the man you love doesn’t love you in return is awful.

The meeting doesn’t end up going all that well, though. Laoghaire sees what Jamie is wearing and views that he is rubbing in his wealth. She worries that he won’t continue paying her the alimony he should do. Jamie ends up giving her some gold, and that’s when the “servant” comes back.

Well, it turns out that the servant, who is described as crippled, isn’t her servant at all. This is the man Laoghaire is with, and she’s with him because he needs her. And I think we get to see what Laoghaire needs in a relationship. She needs to feel needed. That’s what she thinks love is.