Drums of Autumn

Roger worries as he prepares for Brianna to visit his childhood home in Inverness, wondering if she loves him as he loves her. The two of them spend Christmas alone, cleaning out his late adoptive father’s old home and going through the old historian’s books and possessions. Bree, similarly, plans to sell Claire and Frank’s old house in Boston by the summer.

Brianna receives a letter that shows Roger that she has been looking into Jamie’s history without him, and they both discuss not knowing their birth fathers. Brianna also shares her complicated feelings about missing Claire and never being able to see her again, even though she was the one to push Claire to go back to the past. Brianna and Roger nearly have sex, but Roger stops them, as he wants them to promise themselves to one another first.

Roger and Brianna go to Christmas Eve mass together, drawing attention from the town because Roger was raised by a Presbyterian minister. On their walk back home, Roger proposes marriage to Brianna, but he immediately sees that she did not want him to ask her. Bree admits that she still wants Roger, but doesn’t want to marry him, which offends him as he wants more than just to have sex with her.