Content Warning: Part 4 Summary and Analysis sections contain references to rape, sexual assault, hanging, and miscarriage, which are discussed in the source text.

Jamie and Claire travel to the Royal stables at Argentan to view the Percheron broodmares. The ride is difficult for Claire, but they spend it discussing King Louis’s public distancing from the Stuarts. Jamie thinks Charles’s only potential supporter would be Spain, but Spain is refusing help, so Charles must rely on his business ventures, including his attempt to import rare wine from Portugal. The subject turns to Jack Randall. Jamie says he knows that killing Jack will not change things: “There are ways of killing other than with a knife or a gun, and there are things worse than physical death” (404), he tells her. He promises not to duel Jack until after the conception of Frank’s ancestor. But he also makes her promise that if she ever gets the chance to go back to Frank again, she’ll take it this time without looking back.

After viewing the horses, the Duke of Sandringham joins Claire and tells her he could arrange for the murder charges in Scotland against Jamie to be dropped in exchange for him ending his friendship with Charles Stuart.