Claire’s Tortellini Portofino from Dragonfly in Amber For New Year’s Eve
When Geillis Duncan had been condemned as a witch, Jamie had said to me, “Dinna grieve for her, Sassenach; she’s a wicked woman.” And whether she had been wicked or mad, it had made little difference at the time. Should I not have left well enough alone, and left her to find her own fate? Still, I thought, she had once saved my life. In spite of what she was — would be — did I owe it to her to try to save her life? And thus perhaps doom Roger? What right did I have to meddle any further?
It isna a matter of right, Sassenach, I heard Jamie’s voice saying, with a tinge of impatience. It’s a question of duty. Of honor.
“Honor, is it?” I said aloud. “And what’s that?” The waiter with my plate of tortellini Portofino looked startled.
“Eh?” he said.
“Never mind,” I said, too distracted to care much what he thought of me. “Perhaps you’d better bring the rest of the bottle.”
I finished my meal surrounded by ghosts. Finally, fortified by food and wine, I pushed my empty plate aside, and opened Gillian Edgar’s gray notebook.
Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber (Chapter 48)
