“I should have known you’d find some way to arrange for her to be away like this,” Frank remarked as Jamie’s broad form darkened the entrance of the cave. He had to hunch considerably to fit well enough to creep in and settle down opposite Frank. “I’ve seen the way you look at her,” Frank added. Jamie couldn’t decide whether Frank’s trembling was a result of nerves or anger. “She’s explained everything about the two of you and what’s gone on… I can look past it all on her part––she did what was necessary and she’s still alive so that’s something. But you… I should be able to look past what you’ve done since you were ignorant… but all I see when I look at you is the man who’s been fucking my wife and clearly doesn’t want to stop.”
“And all I see when I look at you is the man who would have killed Claire as soon as look at her back at Fort William,” Jamie replied calmly, quietly thrilling at the shock and fear that crossed Frank’s face––Black Jack Randall’s face––at the reference to the successful rescue of a few days earlier. “But I ken ye’re no that man and perhaps ye’ll do me the same courtesy. Besides… I didna come to fight ye––or kill ye, if that’s what ye thought…” Yes, fear had definitely been one of the things causing Frank to tremble, Jamie decided. “I came to tell ye…” He shook his head. “I dinna ken what, to be honest. Just… Take care of her, please… when ye get back to yer time. She’s… she’s a remarkable woman and she deserves to be treated well.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Frank scoffed but without the malice of a few moments earlier. “I married her didn’t I?”
“Aye, ye did. And she chose ye, right enough, so I suppose that should mean something. I just hope ye dinna forget it… dinna take her for granted.”
“Thanks for the marital advice,” Frank quipped. He didn’t appreciate being lectured about his wife by someone who’d known her for little more than a month and clearly lamented the loss of his bedmate.
Jamie’s face darkened briefly and Frank flinched slightly when Jamie moved to rise and leave.
“I love her,” he told Frank quietly. “I dinna doubt ye do too, in yer own way. I want her safe and happy. And if ye dinna make her so… well… two hundred years is a long time to wait, but I’ll watch for her and for you to make sure ye are.”
As Jamie ducked to leave the cave, the light caught him in such a way that it seemed to nearly pass through him like a ghost and Frank’s blood went cold.
Collison Course, at Chapter 6, @lenny9987