Note: This post is restricted to chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 from Dragonfly in Amber. This post has spoilers since it includes foreshadowing.
Here are some details that the reader learns about Jared.
- He is a Jacobite and a successful businessman.
- He has a mistress, a married woman.
- He thinks women are restricted to being “decorative”. Claire muses when meeting him for the first time:
You mean you thought you’d better see how presentable I was, I thought cynically, but smiled at him nonetheless . . . (Dragonfly in Amber, ch. 6)
Jared even reveals the purpose of Claire’s beauty.
“A pretty woman to host dinner parties is a great asset in the wine business, Cousin. . .” (Dragonfly in Amber, ch. 6)
Claire accepts the role of entertaining guests in Paris, and the idea of poisoning Charles Stuart at the dinner table comes to her mind.
. . . If he showed signs of hopping a ship for Scotland, maybe I could slip something into his soup (Dragonfly in Amber, ch. 6)
Of note is the fact that Dougal eventually hears Claire say something similar before Culloden. He tries to kill her, a decision that ends his life. At the same time, this idea of poisoning Charles Stuart reminds her of Geillis. This juxtaposition of two different types of “white ladies” in this thought process is a reminder that both of them are in the past in order to change the future.
Later Jamie reveals that Jacobites do talk of a second rising but at home and not in the taverns. If conversations about the Stuart restoration are heard in taverns, then the rebellion will take place. The reference to poisoning Prince Charles is brought up again. Claire muses:
. . . How did one stop a rebellion? Well, if risings were fomented in taverns, perhaps they could be stopped over dinner tables (Dragonfly in Amber, ch. 7).
These references demonstrate that Claire is willing to even kill in order to have a happy life with Jamie. It is also a reference to the incident associated with the bitter cascara in which somebody, most likely the Comte, tries to poison Claire.
Sources
Gabaldon, Diana. Dragonfly in Amber. New York: Bantam Dell, 1993. Print.