Dragonfly in Amber recap

In 1968 Claire Randall returns to Inverness with her daughter Brianna and, helped by the young historian Roger Wakefield, finally tells the story of the two years she has never explained. In 1744 she and Jamie Fraser were living in Paris, working to bankrupt and discredit Charles Stuart before he could launch the Jacobite rising they knew would end in slaughter. Their schemes cost them their first child, a daughter born dead after Claire ran to stop a duel, and cost Jamie months in the Bastille. The rising came anyway, and they returned to Scotland and rode out with it, winning at Prestonpans and then watching the army starve and retreat through an English winter. On the eve of Culloden, with the cause lost, Jamie killed Dougal MacKenzie to protect Claire, then sent her back through the standing stones carrying their second child while he went to die with his men. Claire returned to 1948 and to Frank, who raised Brianna as his own. Twenty years on, Roger finds proof that Jamie did not die at Culloden.

Previously, in Outlander: in 1945 Claire Randall, a former army nurse on a second honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands with her historian husband Frank, walked into the ring of standing stones at Craigh na Dun and woke in 1743. Taken up by clansmen of the MacKenzies and suspected of being an English spy, she survived on her medical skill and was compelled to marry a young outlawed Highlander, James Fraser, to put her beyond the reach of the officer hunting her, Captain Jonathan Randall, who was both a sadist and Frank's own direct ancestor. The forced marriage became a real one. Offered the chance to go back through the stones, Claire chose to stay. Jamie was later condemned to hang and brutally abused by Randall at Wentworth Prison; Claire and Jamie's kinsmen broke him out, and Randall was believed to have been killed under a stampede of cattle during the escape. She nursed Jamie back from despair at a French abbey. Knowing from Frank's history that the Jacobite rising of 1745 would end in the destruction of the Highlands at Culloden, the two resolved to stay in France and stop the rising before it could begin. Claire was carrying Jamie's child.

In 1968 Claire Randall comes back to Inverness with her twenty-year-old daughter, Brianna, two years after the death of her husband Frank. They arrive as the household of the late Reverend Reginald Wakefield is being dismantled, and Claire asks the Reverend's adopted son, Roger Wakefield, a young Oxford historian, to find out what became of a company of Highland men who followed one James Fraser in the rising of 1745. Sorting his guardian's papers, Roger comes across the old newspaper reports of Claire's disappearance in 1945 and her reappearance three years later, and cannot make the pieces fit. Claire goes alone to Culloden Moor and stands at the clan stones. Afterwards she tells Roger the truth: she travelled two hundred years through the standing stones at Craigh na Dun, spent those missing years in the eighteenth century, and Brianna is Jamie Fraser's daughter. With Brianna listening, Claire begins the account of what happened after she and Jamie fled Scotland for France, and of how she came to be sent back alone.

The story returns to 1744. Jamie and Claire land in France, where his cousin Jared, a wealthy Paris wine merchant, leaves them his house and his business. Their plan is to stop the Jacobite rising at its source by ruining Charles Stuart's credit and drying up the money and promises that would let him sail for Scotland. Claire is pregnant and increasingly conspicuous in Paris society, which is exactly the position they need. At the docks she recognises smallpox aboard a ship belonging to a French nobleman, the Comte St. Germain, and the vessel and its cargo are destroyed, making them a powerful and unforgiving enemy. Jamie takes a small pickpocket, Fergus, out of a brothel and sets him to stealing the prince's correspondence, while Murtagh watches over the household. Charles himself proves charming, devout, chronically short of funds, and entirely deaf to caution, and Jamie finds that undermining him means lying steadily to men whose cause he was raised to honour.

Claire takes up unpaid work at L'Hopital des Anges, a charity hospital run by the redoubtable Mother Hildegarde, where her skill is welcome and her sex is not remarked on; she also becomes a regular at the crowded shop of an odd apothecary, Master Raymond, who knows more about her than she can account for. At Versailles the couple move among courtiers, mistresses and financiers, and Claire meets Mary Hawkins, a frightened English girl of fifteen being married off to an elderly French nobleman, whose surname Claire recognises from Frank's family tree. Then she meets Alexander Randall, a consumptive young secretary in an English duke's service, and learns from him that his brother Jonathan did not die at Wentworth after all. Jamie's reaction is immediate and murderous. Claire, who knows that the man must live long enough for a particular marriage to take place or Frank will never be born, extracts from Jamie a promise to delay any challenge for a year.

Claire and Mary Hawkins are attacked in the street by masked men; Mary is raped, and the assault is never satisfactorily explained, though the Comte St. Germain's circle is suspected. The promise Claire extracted from Jamie collapses when Jonathan Randall assaults Fergus, and Jamie challenges him to a duel in the Bois de Boulogne. Claire, heavily pregnant, races to stop it, arriving in time to see Jamie wound but not kill his enemy. The strain brings on a haemorrhage. She is carried to L'Hopital des Anges, where her daughter is born dead and Claire herself nearly dies of childbed fever. Jamie, who fought a duel in defiance of a royal edict, is arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille.

Claire names the dead child Faith and is brought back from the edge by Master Raymond, who reaches her in the hospital and does something for her that medicine cannot explain. Grief and blame stand between her and Jamie once he can be reached. To free him, Claire goes to the King, who first requires her presence at a private ordeal in which Master Raymond and the Comte St. Germain are tried for sorcery; the Comte drinks from a poisoned cup and dies. The King then names his own price for Jamie's pardon, and Claire pays it. Jamie is released and banished from France. The two of them, still raw with each other, begin the slow work of repairing what the year has cost, and take ship for Scotland with Fergus and Murtagh.

Jamie's pardon lets him return to Lallybroch, the estate he has not seen in years, where his sister Jenny, her husband Ian and their children have kept the place going. For a time there is something like peace: Jamie farms, Fergus is absorbed into the household, and he and Claire slowly find each other again. It does not last. Charles Stuart, unable to get Jamie's support honestly, publishes a bond of association with Jamie's name forged among the signatures, which makes him a traitor to the Crown whether he joins the rising or not. With no way to stand clear, Jamie decides that the only remaining course is to go out with the Jacobites and try to steer the rising away from the catastrophe Claire knows is coming. Charles lands in Scotland, the clans begin to gather, and Jamie raises men from Lallybroch on the condition that Ian stays behind to hold it.

The rising begins in earnest. Dougal MacKenzie rides in with his men, exultant at the war he has waited his life for, and Jamie takes a place among the prince's officers. At Prestonpans the Highland charge shatters a government army in minutes, and Claire, running a rough field hospital, learns what a victory costs in practice. Edinburgh falls to the Jacobites and Charles holds court there, surrounded by advisers who tell him what he wishes to hear and increasingly deaf to Jamie's warnings about supply, money and the government troops massing in England. Colum MacKenzie, laird of the MacKenzies and dying of his long illness, makes the journey to the prince's camp, settles the succession of his clan, and dies. The army marches south into England, expecting an English rising that never comes.

At Derby the Jacobite commanders turn back, and the long retreat north begins in winter, through snow and hunger, with the government army closing behind. Claire treats frostbite, fever and wounds with almost nothing to work with, and Jamie watches the men of Lallybroch waste away for a prince who will not listen. Sheltering with Mary Hawkins at the house of the Duke of Sandringham, Claire discovers that their genial host has been playing both sides and means to sell them; Murtagh arrives and kills him. In Edinburgh, Alexander Randall is dying of consumption, and Mary is carrying his child. At his brother's request, Jonathan Randall marries Mary so that the child will have a name and a legitimate place, which is the marriage Claire has known all along must happen if Frank is ever to be born. Alex dies, and the ragged army stumbles on toward the moor at Culloden.

On the eve of the battle, with the army starving and the cause plainly lost, Jamie and Claire agree that the only way left to stop the slaughter is to poison Charles Stuart. Dougal MacKenzie overhears them, turns on Claire as a witch and a traitor, and in the struggle Jamie kills him. There is no longer any time. Jamie signs a deed making Lallybroch over to his nephew so the estate cannot be forfeited, sends Murtagh to secure it, and rides with Claire to Craigh na Dun. She is pregnant again. He tells her he means to get the Lallybroch men off the field and then die in the fighting, and asks her to name the child for his father. Claire passes through the stones, returns to 1948, and goes back to Frank, who agrees to raise the child as his own on the condition that she never look for Jamie again. In 1968 the frame closes: Roger's search of the records turns up evidence that James Fraser was not killed at Culloden. Claire, Brianna and Roger are left holding the fact that he lived.

On the eve of Culloden, Jamie and Claire make a last attempt to stop the battle by poisoning Charles Stuart. Dougal MacKenzie overhears them, accuses Claire of witchcraft and treason, and attacks her; Jamie kills him and leaves the body hidden. With the army about to be destroyed, Jamie writes a deed transferring Lallybroch to his nephew and sends Murtagh to see the paper safe. He then takes Claire to Craigh na Dun. She is pregnant again, and he refuses to let the child be born on a battlefield. He tells her he intends to see the Lallybroch men off the field and then die in the fighting, and he asks her to name the child for his father. Claire goes through the stones and returns to 1948 and to Frank, who agrees to raise the child as his own. In 1968 the story catches up with itself: Roger's research turns up a record showing that James Fraser was not killed at Culloden after all. Claire, Brianna and Roger are left with the knowledge that Jamie survived the battle, and that the twenty years since could be crossed again.