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Preface

Chronology of the Novels: When to Read What?

The Lord John novellas and novels are sequential, but are built to stand alone; you don’t need to read them in order

In terer Outlander novels: These books are part of the overall series, but are focused for the most part on those tie” in the main novels This particular book focuses also on a part of Jamie Fraser’s life not covered in the main novels

All of the Lord John novels take place between 1756 and 1766—this one is set in 1760—and in terms of the overall Outlander novels/tier So you can read any of the lost

There are also a couple of short stories—and will eventually bewith minor events, minor characters, and/or lacunae in the ies, but will eventually be collected in book form

“A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows” appears in the anthology Songs of Love and Death (edited by George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois) This is a short story set in WWII that tells the story of what really happened to Roger MacKenzie’s parents, Jerry and Dolly

“The Space Between” is a novella that will appear in an anthology titled The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination (edited by John Joseph Adams), which will likely appear sometime in 2012 This story is set er sister), Michael Murray (Young Ian’s older brother), the Comte St Germain (no, of course he’s not dead, don’t be silly), and Mother Hildegarde

Prologue

If you deal in death routinely, there are two paths Either it beco and thus lose your soul—for if the lives ye take are worth nothing, neither is yours

Or you become that much more aware of the value of a life and that much more reluctant to take one without the direst necessity That way you risk losing your own life—there are the quick and there are the dead, and I do not mean what St Paul meant about that—but not your soul

Soldiers , another at ho to do wi’ the man who crushed his enemy’s throat with his boot So he tells himself, sometimes successfully

But itNo matter why it’s done

It’s a brand upon your heart, and while it may heal, the mark canna be removed, save by a blade All ye can hope for is a cleaner scar

SECTION I

The Fate of Fuses

1

April Fool

Helwater, the Lake District

April 1, 1760

IT WAS SO COLD OUT, HE THOUGHT HIS COCK MIGHT BREAK off in his hand—if he could find it The thought passed through his sleep-mazed h the loft,him open his eyes

He could find it now; had waked with his fist wrapped round it and desire shuddering and twitching over his skin like a cloud of htly round his mind, but he kneould fray in seconds, shredded by the snores and farts of the other grooms He needed her, needed to spill himself with the feel of her touch still on him

Hanks stirred in his sleep, chuckled loudly, said so, “Bugger, bugger, bugger …”

Ja si back his blanket Damn the cold

He made his way down the ladder into the half-war in his haste, ignoring a splinter in his bare foot He hesitated in the dark, still urgent The horses wouldn’t care, but if they noticed hih noise, perhaps, to wake the others

Wind struck the barn and went boo chilly draft with a scent of snow stirred the so and whickering Overhead, a er” drifted down, acco the blanket up round his ears, defying reality

Claire was still with hiine that he smelled her hair in the scent of fresh hay The memory of her mouth, those sharp white teeth … He rubbed his nipple, hard and itching beneath his shirt, and sed

His eyes were long accustomed to the dark; he found the vacant loose box at the end of the row and leaned against its boards, cock already in his fist, body andfor his lost wife

He’d have o altogether, and he surged into the ave way in the aftermath and he slid slowly down the boards of the box into the loose piled hay, shirt rucked round his thighs and his heart pounding like a kettledrum

Lord, that she ht She and the child

HE PLUNGED at once into a sleep so deep and luxurious that when a hand shook hi to his feet but ishly, s His instincts caetting his feet under hiainst the wall of the loose box

There was a gasp from the small form in the shadows before him, and he classified it as feminine just in time to restrain himself from reflexive violence

“Who’s that?” he demanded He spoke low, his voice hoarse with sleep, and the for dubiousness

He was in noher by the arh she were red-hot, cursing his of his fellow grooms overhead

“What the devil’s that?” Crusoe deed pipe Jamie heard him clear his throat and spit thickly into his half-filled pot, then bellon the ladder, “Who’s there?”

The shadowy for hi with mild confusion but not panicked; they were used to Crusoe shouting in the night He did it whenever he had the ht at his demons

Ja to think If Crusoe and Hanks didn’t already knoas gone, they’d notice in the next few seconds

Preface

Chronology of the Novels: When to Read What?

The Lord John novellas and novels are sequential, but are built to stand alone; you don’t need to read them in order

In terer Outlander novels: These books are part of the overall series, but are focused for the most part on those tie” in the main novels This particular book focuses also on a part of Jamie Fraser’s life not covered in the main novels

All of the Lord John novels take place between 1756 and 1766—this one is set in 1760—and in terms of the overall Outlander novels/tier So you can read any of the lost

There are also a couple of short stories—and will eventually bewith minor events, minor characters, and/or lacunae in the ies, but will eventually be collected in book form

“A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows” appears in the anthology Songs of Love and Death (edited by George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois) This is a short story set in WWII that tells the story of what really happened to Roger MacKenzie’s parents, Jerry and Dolly

“The Space Between” is a novella that will appear in an anthology titled The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination (edited by John Joseph Adams), which will likely appear sometime in 2012 This story is set er sister), Michael Murray (Young Ian’s older brother), the Comte St Germain (no, of course he’s not dead, don’t be silly), and Mother Hildegarde

Prologue

If you deal in death routinely, there are two paths Either it beco and thus lose your soul—for if the lives ye take are worth nothing, neither is yours

Or you become that much more aware of the value of a life and that much more reluctant to take one without the direst necessity That way you risk losing your own life—there are the quick and there are the dead, and I do not mean what St Paul meant about that—but not your soul

Soldiers , another at ho to do wi’ the man who crushed his enemy’s throat with his boot So he tells himself, sometimes successfully

But itNo matter why it’s done

It’s a brand upon your heart, and while it may heal, the mark canna be removed, save by a blade All ye can hope for is a cleaner scar

SECTION I

The Fate of Fuses

1

April Fool

Helwater, the Lake District