Linen Suit Quotes

I stooped under the rude lintel, and there he sat upon a stone outside, his gray eyes dancing with amusement as they fell upon my astonished features. He was thin and worn, but clear and alert, his keen face bronzed by the sun and roughened by the wind. In his tweed suit and cloth cap he looked like any other tourist upon the moor, and he had contrived, with that catlike love of personal cleanliness which was one of his characteristics, that his chin should be as smooth and his linen as perfect as if he were in Baker Street.

At the rear of the courtyard, several chairs had been placed beneath a vined trellis, and it was here Pickett at last spied Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. He was wearing a white linen suit similar to the one Pickett recalled from their meeting a fortnight or so earlier at a rooftop bar in Miami Beach. One leg was flung over the other, and beautifully made loafers of buttery leather were on his feet.

He was wearing a gleaming cream-coloured linen suit, and a Panama hat. The weirdest thing about this was that he was not the most outlandish-looking person in the room by a long way. Not that Little Miss Dresses-Like-Bogart over here has a right to complain

But it was one thing to condemn him when court had adjourned and you looked back on what he had done, and it was another different thing entirely when you were sitting on the jury with a man’s life in your hands and Nowell was walking up and down in front of the rail in that crisp white linen suit, stopping every now and then and leaning forward to speak in a voice that was barely above a whisper, the courtroom so quiet you could hear your neighbor holding his breath and every time Judge Holiman raked one of those matches across the bench it was like the crack of doom, Nowell throwing law at you with one hand and logic with the other, until finally you got to thinking you were all that was left in this big wide ugly world to save a poor victim of malice and circumstance from being lynched by the State of Mississippi.

I was with a six-foot-four, athletic, angsty young man dressed in casual linen pants and matching fawn-colored shirt. Under it was a skintight two-piece suit of silk and spandex that had set us back a couple hundred dollars, but after seeing him in it, my head bobbed and my card came out.

He returns to the blur of velvet and firelight in the main room, kicking off his shoes as he walks, managing to remove his suit jacket and vest before he reaches the bed but he is asleep before he can deal with additional buttons, linen sheets, and lamb's-wool pillows swallowing him like a cloud and he welcomes it, his last thoughts before sleeping a fleeting mix of reflections on the evening that has finally ended, questions and worries about everything from his sanity to hot to get paint out of his hair and then it is gone, the last wisp of thought wondering how you go to sleep if you're already dreaming.

Edward Lasco was on the screened porch of his rented house in a comfortable but not elegant older section of the town where he'd lived for the past fifteen years when his wife, Elise, who six months before had left him and moved to a nearby city to work in a psychiatric hospital, came around the side of the house and stood beside the screen looking in. She had on a business outfit—natural linen suit, knee-high boots, dark glasses with at least three distinguishable colors tiered top to bottom in the lenses—and she carried a slick briefcase, thin and shiny. Her hair was shorter than he'd seen it, styled in a peculiar way so that it seemed it spots to jerk away from her head, to say, "I'm hair, boy, and you'd better believe it." Edward had come outside with a one-pint carton of skim milk and a ninety-nine-cookie package of Oreos and a just-received issue of InfoWorld, and he was entirely content with the prospect of eating his cookies and drinking his milk and reading his magazine, but when he saw Elise he was filled with a sudden, very unpleasant sense that he didn't want to see her. It'd been a good two and a half months since he'd talked to her, and there she was looking like an earnest TV art director's version of the modern businesswoman; it made him feel that his life was fucked, and this was before she'd said a word.

I was flying. My shoulders loosened, my stride opened, my heart banged the base of my throat. I crossed Carnegie and ran up the block waving my arms. I crossed Lexington and ran up the block waving my arms. A linen-suited woman in her fifties did meet my exultant eye. She looked exultant herself, seeing me from far up the block. Her face was thin and tanned. We converged. Her warm, intelligent glance said she knew what I was doing- not because she herself had been a child but because she herself took a few loose aerial turns around her apartment every night for the hell of it, and by day played along with the rest of the world and took the streetcar. So Teresa of Avila checked her unseemly joy and hung on to the altar rail to hold herself down. The woman's smiling, deep glance seemed to read my own awareness from my face, so we passed on the sidewalk- a beautifully upright woman walking in her tan linen suit, a kid running and flapping her arms- we passed on the sidewalk with a look of accomplices who share a humor just beyond irony. What's a heart for?

I kept thinking of them as dead feet. “There are dozens of linen handkerchiefs, that’s something,” said Rose. But I hated the handkerchiefs — and the gloves and the stockings; and a dreadful pair of broken-looking corsets. “People’s clothes ought to be buried with them,” I said. “They oughtn’t to be left behind to be despised.” “I’m not despising them,” said Rose. “Some of these suits are made of wonderful cloth.

Now I’m going to change in front of you, okay? I’m not about to hop around putting on a linen suit near a toilet in a small stall. That just screams disaster waiting to happen. But I have to warn you, I’m wearing nude colored boxer briefs. Jaleesa picked them out for me. Said I couldn’t wear black with cream linen pants. But fucking nude? They make me look like a goddamn Ken doll, no dick, just a flat crotch. Not a fan. Just warning you so you’re not startled.

Since the 1300s, this job had been performed by members of a small group of families, all living in the hills near the mine. Over the centuries humans grew larger, but the miners stayed the same size, until they eventually seemed dwarfed by the demands of the mine and their time underground (diet and inbreeding were more likely causes). Even in the early twentieth century, this small isolated community spoke a dialect last popular in the Middle Ages. They explored their tunnels with acetylene torches, and wore the white linen suits and peaked caps of medieval miners.

In this office right now I am thinking about how long it would take a corpse to disintegrate right in this office. In this office these are the things I fantasize about while dreaming: Eating ribs at Red, Hot and Blue in Washington, D.C. If I should switch shampoos. What really is the best dry beer? Is Bill Robinson an overrated designer? What’s wrong with IBM? Ultimate luxury. Is the term “playing hardball” an adverb? The fragile peace of Assisi. Electric light. The epitome of luxury. Of ultimate luxury. The bastard’s wearing the same damn Armani linen suit I’ve got on.

I glanced back down at my bathing suit, thought about my house, the dirty dishes in the sink, my tampon box on top of the toilet, the remnants of Ben’s and my mani-pedi party still on the coffee table, mail scattered on the table… this was bad. I took off running, the white-linen-panted gay close on my water-pruned heels.

When we arrived at the wedding at Marlboro Man’s grandparents’ house, I gasped. People were absolutely everywhere: scurrying and mingling and sipping champagne and laughing on the lawn. Marlboro Man’s mother was the first person I saw. She was an elegant, statuesque vision in her brown linen dress, and she immediately greeted and welcomed me. “What a pretty suit,” she said as she gave me a warm hug. Score. Success. I felt better about life.

gentleman all over; and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and that’s worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy in our town; and pap he always said it, too, though he warn’t no more quality than a mudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it anywheres; he was clean shaved every morning all over his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at you, as you may say. His forehead was high, and his hair was black and straight and hung to his shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head to foot made out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it; and on Sundays he wore a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it. He carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it.

He was wearing a suit that appeared to have been constructed by 1) Dressing him in a blouse with twenty-foot long sleeves of the most expensive linen. 2) Bunching the sleeves up in numerous overlapping gathers on his arms. 3) Painting most of him in glue. 4) Shaking and rolling him in a bin containing thousands of black silk doilies. 5) (because king Charles II, who’d mandated a few years earlier that all courtiers wear black and white, was getting bored with it, but had not formally rescinded the order) adding dashes of color here and there primarily in the form of clusters of elaborately gathered and knotted ribbons, enough ribbon all told to stretch all the way to whatever shop in Paris where the Earl had bought all of this stuff.

When I woke up, sunlight was streaming through the windows in my suite. There was a lipstick-smeared drool stain on the Frette linens. And someone was . . . shouting. Wait, what? I turned my heavy head. The Vice President of Marketing was in my room—yelling at me! “AHHHHH!” I was nearly naked! I fumbled for the duvet. “You missed breakfast!” The Vice President of Marketing was bugging. Behind her was a male hotel employee with a key card. “We’ve been calling and calling!” “I overslept!” I cried. “Why are you in my room? Can you give me some fucking privacy? You can’t just bust in on people!” I knew I shouldn’t talk to one of Lucky’s biggest advertisers this way, but I was pissed. I may have been a drug addict, but I had my dignity! You know?

Jay's downstairs waiting." With her father on one side, and the handrail on the other, Violet descended the stairs as if she were floating. Jay stood at the bottom, watching her, frozen in place like a statue. His black suit looked as if it had been tailored just for him. His jacket fell across his strong shoulders in a perfect line, tapering at his narrow waist. The crisp white linen shirt beneath stood out in contrast against the dark, finely woven wool. He smiled appreciatively as he watched her approach, and Violet felt her breath catch in her throat at the striking image of flawlessness that he presented. "You...are so beautiful," he whispered fervently as he strode toward her, taking her dad's place at her arm. She smiled sheepishly up at him. "So are you." Her mom insisted on taking no fewer than a hundred pictures of the two of them, both alone and together, until Violet felt like her eyes had been permanently damaged by the blinding flash. Finally her father called off her mom, dragging her away into the kitchen so that Violet and Jay could have a moment alone together. "I meant it," he said. "You look amazing." She shook her head, not sure what to say, a little embarrassed by the compliment. "I got you something," he said to her as he reached inside his jacket. "I hope you don't mind, it's not a corsage." Violet couldn't have cared less about having flowers to pin on her dress, but she was curious about what he had brought for her. She watched as he dragged out the moment longer than he needed to, taking his time to reveal his surprise. "I got you this instead." He pulled out a black velvet box, the kind that holds fine jewelry. It was long and narrow. She gasped as she watched him lift the lid. Inside was a delicate silver chain, and on it was the polished outline of a floating silver heart that drifted over the chain that held it. Violet reached out to touch it with her fingertip. "It's beautiful," she sighed. He lifted the necklace from the box and held it out to her. "May I?" he asked. She nodded, her eyes bright with excitement as he clasped the silver chain around her bare throat. "Thank you," she breathed, interlacing her hand into his and squeezing it meaningfully. She reluctantly used the crutches to get out to the car, since there were no handrails for her to hold on to. She left like they ruined the overall effect she was going for. Jay's car was as nice on the inside as it was outside. The interior was rich, smoky gray leather that felt like soft butter as he helped her inside. Aside from a few minor flaws, it could have passed for brand-new. The engine purred to life when he turned the key in the ignition, something that her car had never done. Roar, maybe-purr, never. She was relieved that her uncle hadn't ordered a police escort for the two of them to the dance. She had half expected to see a procession of marked police cars, lights swirling and sirens blaring, in the wake of Jay's sleek black Acura. Despite sitting behind the wheel of his shiny new car, Jay could scarcely take his eyes off her. His admiring gaze found her over and over again, while he barely concentrated on the road ahead of him. Fortunately they didn't have far to go.

As Garrett looked up from the transfuser, she blinked at the sight of a shirtless West Ravenel hoisting himself easily onto the table. Despite his earlier crack about Ethan's athletic form, he was certainly no physical lightweight himself. He had the hard, rippling musculature of a man accustomed to lifting and carrying heavy weight. But what had surprised Garrett was the discovery that his torso was tanned the same shade of golden brown as his face. All over. What kind of gentleman went outside in the sun for that long with no shirt?" Ravenel's lips quirked as he saw her expression. A twinkle of arrogant amusement appeared in his eyes. "Farmwork," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "And I do some quarrying." "Half naked?" Garrett asked tartly, setting the transfuser on an expanse of clean linen. "I've been loading rocks into horse carts," he said. "Which suits my intellectual capacity perfectly. But it's too hot for a shirt.

Only as a young man playing pool all night for money had he been able to find what he wanted in life, and then only briefly. People thought pool hustling was corrupt and sleazy, worse than boxing. But to win at pool, to be a professional at it, you had to deliver. In a business you could pretend that skill and determination had brought you along, when it had only been luck and muddle. A pool hustler did not have the freedom to believe that. There were well-paid incompetents everywhere living rich lives. They arrogated to themselves the plush hotel suites and Lear Jets that America provided for the guileful and lucky far more than it did for the wise. You could fake and bluff and luck your way into all of it. Hotel suites overlooking Caribbean private beaches. Bl*wj*bs from women of stunning beauty. Restaurant meals that it took four tuxedoed waiters to serve, with the sauces just right. The lamb or duck in tureen sliced with precise and elegant thinness, sitting just so on the plate, the plate facing you just so on the heavy white linen, the silver fork heavy gleaming in your manicured hand below the broad cloth cuff and mother of pearl buttons. You could get that from luck and deceit even while causing the business or the army or the government that supported you to do poorly at what it did. The world and all its enterprises could slide downhill through stupidity and bad faith. But the long gray limousines would still hum through the streets of New York, of Paris, of Moscow, of Tokyo. Though the men who sat against the soft leather in back with their glasses of 12-year-old scotch might be incapable of anything more than looking important, of wearing the clothes and the hair cuts and the gestures that the world, whether it liked to or not, paid for, and always had paid for. Eddie would lie in bed sometimes at night and think these things in anger, knowing that beneath the anger envy lay like a swamp. A pool hustler had to do what he claimed to be able to do. The risks he took were not underwritten. His skill on the arena of green cloth, cloth that was itself the color of money, could never be only pretense. Pool players were often cheats and liars, petty men whose lives were filled with pretensions, who ran out on their women and walked away from their debts. But on the table with the lights overhead beneath the cigarette smoke and the silent crowd around them in whatever dive of a billiard parlor at four in the morning, they had to find the wherewithal inside themselves to do more than promise excellence. Under whatever lies might fill the life, the excellence had to be there, it had to be delivered. It could not be faked. But Eddie did not make his living that way anymore.

In that sleep and in sleeps to follow the judge did visit. Who would come other? A great shambling mutant, silent and serene. Whatever his antecedents he was something wholly other than their sum, nor was there system by which to divide him back into his origins for he would not go. Whoever would seek out his history through what unraveling of loins and ledgerbooks must stand at last darkened and dumb at the shore of a void without terminus or origin and whatever science he might bring to bear upon the dusty primal matter blowing down out of the millennia will discover no trace of any ultimate atavistic egg by which to reckon his commencing. In the white and empty room he stood in his bespoken suit with his hat in his hand and he peered down with his small and lashless pig’s eyes wherein this child just sixteen years on earth could read whole bodies of decisions not accountable to the courts of men and he saw his own name which nowhere else could he have ciphered out at all logged into the records as a thing already accomplished, a traveler known in jurisdictions existing only in the claims of certain pensioners or on old dated maps. In his delirium he ransacked the linens of his pallet for arms but there were none. The judge smiled. The fool was no longer there but another man and this other man he could never see in his entirety but he seemed an artisan and a worker in metal. The judge enshadowed him where he crouched at his trade but he was a coldforger who worked with hammer and die, perhaps under some indictment and an exile from men’s fires, hammering out like his own conjectural destiny all through the night of his becoming some coinage for a dawn that would not be. It is this false moneyer with his gravers and burins who seeks favor with the judge and he is at contriving from cold slag brute in the crucible a face that will pass, an image that will render this residual specie current in the markets where men barter. Of this is the judge judge and the night does not end.

Gray harbored a slight preference for the stripes. Not only did the darker color suit her complexion, but the neckline plunged in an enticing manner, displaying a wedge of sheer chemise. The sprigged gown had a higher, square neckline, and only one flounce to this frock’s two. But then…The sprigged gown had tiny buttons down the side-fourteen buttons, to be exact, and though just mentally undoing them was enough to drive Gray mad with frustration, that mile-long stretch of miniscule pearl dots was some comfort. The fastenings of this striped gown, by contrast, were completely invisible. Were there little hooks, he wondered, under the sleeves? Hidden in the seams somewhere? Miss Turner coughed and shifted in her seat. Dear God. Gray shook himself, realizing he’d just spent the better part of a minute openly staring in the direction of her breasts. At a distance of no more than two feet. Worse-he’d wasted that blasted minute obsessing about hooks and buttons, when he could have been scanning for the shadow of an areola, or the crest of a nipple. Damn. And now he had no choice but to drop his gaze and study the china. It did look well, the porcelain. The acanthus pattern complemented the scrollwork on the silver quite nicely. Odd, to be drinking Madeira from teacups, but at least they were better than tin. The white drape beneath it all was nothing of quality, but the lighting was dim, and it would do. Gray put out a hand to straighten his fork. “The table looks lovely,” she said, to no one in particular. Dear God. Once again, she jolted him back into reality, and Gray realized he’d spent the better part of two minutes now fussing over china and table linens. First dressmaking, now table-setting…If it wasn’t for the fact that her voice called straight to his swelling groin, Gray might have begun to question his masculinity. What the hell was happening to him? He wanted her. He wanted her body, quite obviously. More disturbing by far, he could no longer deny that he wanted her approval. And he wanted both with a near-paralyzing intensity, though he knew he could never have one without sacrificing the other. Then she extended her slender wrist to reach for the teacup, and Gray remembered the reason for this entire display. He wanted to see her eat.

When we arrived at the wedding at Marlboro Man’s grandparents’ house, I gasped. People were absolutely everywhere: scurrying and mingling and sipping champagne and laughing on the lawn. Marlboro Man’s mother was the first person I saw. She was an elegant, statuesque vision in her brown linen dress, and she immediately greeted and welcomed me. “What a pretty suit,” she said as she gave me a warm hug. Score. Success. I felt better about life. After the ceremony, I’d meet Cousin T., Cousin H., Cousin K., Cousin D., and more aunts, uncles, and acquaintances than I ever could have counted. Each family member was more gracious and welcoming than the one before, and it didn’t take long before I felt right at home. This was going well. This was going really, really well. It was hot, though, and humid, and suddenly my lightweight wool suit didn’t feel so lightweight anymore. I was deep in conversation with a group of ladies--smiling and laughing and making small talk--when a trickle of perspiration made its way slowly down my back. I tried to ignore it, tried to will the tiny stream of perspiration away, but one trickle soon turned into two, and two turned into four. Concerned, I casually excused myself from the conversation and disappeared into the air-conditioned house. I needed to cool off. I found an upstairs bathroom away from the party, and under normal circumstances I would have taken time to admire its charming vintage pedestal sinks and pink hexagonal tile. But the sweat profusely dripping from all pores of my body was too distracting. Soon, I feared, my jacket would be drenched. Seeing no other option, I unbuttoned my jacket and removed it, hanging it on the hook on the back of the bathroom door as I frantically looked around the bathroom for an absorbent towel. None existed. I found the air vent on the ceiling, and stood on the toilet to allow the air-conditioning to blast cool air on my face. Come on, Ree, get a grip, I told myself. Something was going on…this was more than simply a reaction to the August humidity. I was having some kind of nervous psycho sweat attack--think Albert Brooks in Broadcast News--and I was being held captive by my perspiration in the upstairs bathroom of Marlboro Man’s grandmother’s house in the middle of his cousin’s wedding reception. I felt the waistband of my skirt stick to my skin. Oh, God…I was in trouble. Desperate, I stripped off my skirt and the stifling control-top panty hose I’d made the mistake of wearing; they peeled off my legs like a soggy banana skin. And there I stood, naked and clammy, my auburn bangs becoming more waterlogged by the minute. So this is it, I thought. This is hell. I was in the throes of a case of diaphoresis the likes of which I’d never known. And it had to be on the night of my grand entrance into Marlboro Man’s family. Of course, it just had to be. I looked in the mirror, shaking my head as anxiety continued to seep from my pores, taking my makeup and perfumed body cream along with it. Suddenly, I heard the knock at the bathroom door. “Yes? Just a minute…yes?” I scrambled and grabbed my wet control tops. “Hey, you…are you all right in there?” God help me. It was Marlboro Man.

Impeccable tailoring has helped make Prince Charles the king of London’s menswear mecca, Savile Row, where high-end shops sometimes bear his royal warrant (a tri-feathered heraldic badge of approval). His look is timeless: sharply cut double-breasted suits, shirts with spread collars, bold rep ties and pocket squares. The prince has single-handedly kept the double-breasted look in fashion since the ’80s, but he’s not afraid to take a risk, pressing on with linen suits after the press bashed his rumpled appearance. “He couldn’t care less,” says his former personal tailor Thomas Mahon. “He even ordered another.

There she goes, an elderly, well-dressed woman in a tailor-made suit and a, what was it, “worn” fur coat—a lady dressed, armoured for the day, vanishing now down the long ugly avenue, the black branches scratching her out of sight. There she goes, all day to impress others with her small linen handkerchiefs, the pearls in her ears, her hesitant manner, her tremulous smile,--while to him was left the imprint of her head, it was already cold where she had lain, and knowing what they would never know, that she wore a blue slip beneath the suit…

He smiled – a real smile. Damn. It was easier to deal with him when he was being thoroughly vile. "Look, I’m sorry for being so rude earlier today. Your presence came as something of a shock and I reacted badly." "Oh." Geared for battle, his apology took me utterly by surprise. I gaped. "Aunt Arabella spoke very highly of you," he added, heaping coals of fire on my head. "She was impressed by your work on the Purple Gentian." "Why all this sudden amiability?" I asked suspiciously, crossing my arms across my chest. "Are you always this blunt?" "I’m too tired to be tactful," I said honestly. "Fair enough." Stretching, Colin detached himself from the wall. "Can I make you some hot chocolate as a token of peace? I was just about to have some myself," he added. Suiting action to words, he loped over to the counter beside the sink and checked the level of water in a battered brown plastic electric kettle. Satisfied, he plugged it into the wall, flipping the red switch on the side. I followed him over to the counter, the linen folds of the nightgown trailing after me across the linoleum. "As long as you promise not to slip any arsenic in it." Colin rooted around in a cupboard above the sink for the cocoa tin and held it out to me to sniff. "See? Arsenic free." I leant back against the counter, my elbows behind me on the marble work surface. "I don’t think arsenic is supposed to have a smell, is it?" "Damn, foiled again." Colin spooned Cadbury’s instant hot chocolate into two mugs, one decorated with large purple flowers, and the other with a quotation that I thought might be Jane Austen, but the author’s name was hidden around the other side of the mug. "Look, if it makes you feel better, I promise to do a very bad job hiding your body." "In that case, carry on," I yawned.

Jonathan Green had a firm handshake, clear eyes, and a jawline not dissimilar to Dudley Do-Right’s. He was in his early sixties, with graying hair, a beach-club tan, and a voice that was rich and comforting. A minister’s voice. He wasn’t a handsome man, but there was a sincerity in his eyes that put you at ease. Jonathan Green was reputed to be one of the top five criminal defense attorneys in America, with a success rate in high-profile criminal defense cases of one hundred percent. Like Elliot Truly, Jonathan Green was wearing an impeccably tailored blue Armani suit. So were the lesser attorneys. Maybe they got a bulk discount. I was wearing impeccably tailored black Gap jeans, a linen aloha shirt, and white Reebok sneakers. Green said, “Did Elliot explain why we wanted to see you?

It was not just that slaves worked his fields; they cut his firewood, cooked and served his meals, washed and ironed his linen, brushed his suits, nursed his children, cleaned, scrubbed, polished, opened and closed doors for him, saddled his horse, turned down his bed, waited on him hand and foot from dawn to dusk.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend my golden years behind steel and concrete beating my dick to naked photos. I want shrimp and lobster, naked bitches and good pussy, linen suits and ocean views.

The wineglasses look like they’ve been Windexed. That dude did not buy his suit at the three-suits-for-one sale at Jos. A. Bank; it looks like it’s made from silk. The linens on the table look softer than my bedsheets; I need to touch them without being weird about it.

Then let’s go.” He tugged her. She resisted. “Oh, I understand.” Sunlight danced in his eyes. “You’re waiting for me to pick you up and carry you.” She sucked in a breath. “You wouldn’t dare.” A hint of a grin snared the corner of his mouth. “Don’t you know you should never dare me? It’s a sure bet I’ll do it.” Before she could protest, he grabbed her around the middle. With one motion he lifted her to his shoulder and hung her there like a sack of seed grain. “Eli Ernest! This is entirely uncivilized.” Her cheeks burned. But not entirely from embarrassment. “No one ever said I was civilized.” She made a halfhearted protest by squirming. The cold wetness from his clothes seeped through the thin layers of her dress and linen chemise. He clamped his arm across her backside. She gasped and grew motionless. The solidness of his arm pushed against the roundness of her flesh. “Your hold is quite indecent.” “Suits me just fine.” He stalked forward with an ease that belied her weight and his exhaustion. “It’s entirely inappropriate.” She couldn’t think past the pressure his arm exerted. “Please, put me down. You’ll cause a scene.” His arm only tightened. “You know how much I like causing scenes.” Her mind whirled, and the heat in her cheeks blazed hotter. “Then you’ll force me to take extreme measures to stop you.” He chuckled. “I’d like to see what you can do.” She took a deep breath, and then, before she lost courage, she sank her fingers into the hair that stuck in wet clumps to the back of his neck. His steps faltered. She combed through the thick locks, letting her fingers brush against the soft skin. “Looks like you’re in need of a haircut,” she said softly, in what she hoped was a seductive voice. He stumbled. Her brazenness shocked even her own delicate ears. But she couldn’t help smiling. Her ploy was working. She brushed her fingers through his hair again, pulling the wet strands up, making sure to trail her fingers across his neck. “I can give you a haircut.” She wrapped a strand around one of her fingers. “If you want.” With a jolt, he stopped. He shifted her and slid her down. When her feet touched the ground, he didn’t let her go but instead pulled her against him. His eyes flashed with a heat she couldn’t begin to understand. “You won.

Sub-Zero I am a genteel wretch, not without gaiety or self-respect, a ‘ragamuffin top’, so to speak, dining daily off an eclectic tasters menu culled from hunter green dumpsters of Zagat 29s. It’s really not a bad life, a bit of an adventure too, like the time I went fishing for bream from a mokoro in the Okavanga Delta and a hippo nearly tipped my dugout because I inadvertently came between the mom and her calf. I pissed my pants and returned for a change of wardrobe and cocktails to my five star safari tent at Camp Moreni, a charming hideaway with a teak wardrobe, designer linens, woven rugs and en-suite bathroom. Lately, I’ve sought shelter in a Sub-Zero Pro 48 cardboard box which I’ve accented with freshly plucked Lilies of the Valley. Sure, it’s smaller than the GE 25 cubic but you can’t compare the stiffness of the corrugation, the A-fluting and 400# test strength. Hey, without our standards what are we?

Sub-Zero I am a genteel wretch, not without gaiety or self-respect, a ‘ragamuffin top’, so to speak,dining daily off an eclectic tasters menu culled from hunter green dumpsters of Zagat 29s. It’s really not a bad life, a bit of an adventure too, like the time I went fishing for bream from a mokoro in the Okavanga Delta and a hippo nearly tipped my dugout because I inadvertently came between the mom and her calf. I pissed my pants and returned for a change of wardrobe and cocktails to my five star safari tent at Camp Moreni,a charming hideaway with a teak wardrobe, designer linens, woven rugs and en-suite bathroom. Lately, I’ve sought shelter in a Sub-Zero cardboard box which I’ve accented with freshly plucked Lilies of the Valley. Sure, it’s smaller than the GE 25 cubic but you can’t compare the stiffness of the corrugation, the A-fluting and 400# test strength. Hey, without our standards what are we?

Ian opens the box and moves the polystyrene strips to uncover a matryoshka. He’s astonished when he sees that it’s his face painted on it. "But...," he says. "Is it me?" He looks at Andrea, puzzled. "You’re very good." The look is from a photo of him at a party, before he knew him personally, that he found on the internet. He’s in a gray suit and has a cane, like a count from the olden days. "That's the Count," he says, and Ian looks at him and swallows. Andrea smiles. His gift holds a deep meaning that only the two of them understand. Ian opens the first doll and inside there is another. He gasps on seeing it. "That’s Dorian," says Andrea. He has painted Ian as he had looked on the night of his first event. When he wore the white Versace suit and Borsalino fedora. His hand trembling, Ian opens the doll to see the next one inside. "That's Ian," Andrea smiles, as does Ian when he sees himself portrayed with the black linen scarf and white sweater that he was wearing when they had met for the first time in Clusone. He has a serious look in the previous dolls while here he is cheerful. Ian shakes the doll a little and hears the wood rattle. He looks at Andrea, doubtful: they both know that their rapport finishes here. Andrea hasn’t discovered his innermost layer and sounderstands his perplexity. Ian seems to have to pluck up courage and then opens again. Inside there is the last, smallest doll, made from a single small piece of wood and known as the "seed". It dances in a large empty space, given that the doll above it is missing. It’s golden and doesn’t have a face. "That’s the soul," says Andrea. "One’s missing. That's why there's that little table with brushes in my room. I hope to do it soon. As soon as I can." Ian takes the little piece of wood and holds it in his fist. "Thank you, Andrea. It’s a wonderful gift," he says, tightening his jaw. "I eagerly await the last." He’s

Paul Costelloe One of the most established and experienced names in British fashion, Irish-born Paul Costelloe has maintained a highly successful design label for more than twenty-five years. He was educated in Paris and Milan, and has since become known for his expertise in fabrics, primarily crisp linen and tweed. I remember another moment, in the pouring rain in Hyde Park, when Pavarotti was singing for an audience. Diana went up to him in a design of mine, a double-breasted suit consisting of a jacket and skirt. She was absolutely soaked and she was beautifully suntanned. To me, the most radiant photograph of her that has ever appeared anywhere was taken then. If you ever get a chance to look at it, you must. It is featured in a couple of books about her. It really is something special to me--I have it on my wall, in my studio, at this very moment. Whenever I look at it, I get a lump in my throat. There was another occasion when she wore something of mine that stands out in my mind. Diana was wearing a very sheer skirt and jacket and was standing in the sun. She was in India, in front of the Taj Mahal, and her skirt was see-through. Of course, the press went full out on that. My last memory of her is when she was wearing a linen dress of mine in Melbourne and was surrounded by a large group of Australian swimmers. That, for me, was a very exciting moment. She was always incredibly polite, incredibly generous. There is simply no comparison. She had a completely different manner from everyone else. I have been to Buckingham Palace, and she was always far above the rest. I must have been the one and only Irishman ever to dress a member of the Royal Family!

That’s happened before, hasn’t it?” Andre asked. “With so many weapons manufactured here, in an industry that employs thousands of people – and with so many buyers all round the world, it seems almost inevitable.” “You are correct, ” replied Colonel Hoffman. “What has never happened before is that nuclear armaments become involved.” “Nuclear?” asked Nicci. “I thought South Africa gave up its program to manufacture nuclear bombs long ago?” She was wearing a cream linen suit, which emphasised the rich brown tone of her skin. Andre had certainly noticed and he thought she looked magnificent, but Hoffman seemed strangely unaffected. Idly, Andre wondered if Hoffman was gay. The Colonel nodded. “This,” he said “is something slightly different.

The cheery woman was coming toward me from the adjoining yard as if she had been standing at the corner of the house there, waiting. She was maybe five-eight, and dark the way you’re dark when you spend a lot of time in the sun running and working out and playing sports. I made her for her early- to mid-thirties, but the lines around her eyes and mouth were deep. Probably from all the sun. She was wearing designer jeans like the black guy and Reebok court shoes and a loose linen top that she would probably cover with a linen sport coat if it weren’t so hot. Stylish and attractive, even with the Browning 9mm clipped to her right hip. She badged me with an LAPD detective shield as she approached, still cheery with the smile, and I recognized her just before she said, “Mr. Cole, my name is Angela Rossi. The detective in the gray suit would like to ask you a few questions.” She glanced at the guy in the bad suit and I followed her look just as she knew I would, and when I did she stepped close and threw an overhand with a black leather sap, trying for the side of my head. Sucker shot. I picked up her move and tried to twist out of the way, but she was good and fast and I caught most of the sap on my right cheek with a blossom of pain. The guy in the suit yelled, “Hey!” and the black guy grunted, “Shit!” like they were surprised, too. Rossi followed the sap with a hard knee, but it caught me in the thigh instead of the groin, and then the older guy was there, wedging himself between us, forcing her away and saying, “Dammit, Rossi, you want another beef in your file? Is that what you want?

Agreeing completely, Zarya came to an abrupt halt as she saw the small side table that had been pulled out for them. “Small” being the operative word. It must have been an end table in the conference room. The chairs were tiny foldaways with stained gray cushions. And while the linens were clean, they, too, were stained in places. It was the ultimate slap in the face. But for Darling, she’d be throwing a tantrum over it. Instead, she smiled at the woman and graciously sat down while Maris followed suit. Never let them know how much they’ve hurt you. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Her father had raised her on those principles and she held them tight. Starskas didn’t flinch or bitch. They got even. Lady

With a firm step, he walked down the hall and turned the white china knob of his door, the porcelain smooth and cool beneath his fingers. A wave of heat engulfed him and he gasped for air, involuntarily. Just as well, as it prevented his uttering the blasphemy that had sprung to his lips. The gentleman occupying the room’s only chair was indeed “Frenchy”—his very well-cut suit set off by cascades of snowy lace at throat and cuff, his shoes buckled with a silver that matched the hair at his temples. “Mr. Beauchamp,” Grey said, and slowly closed the door behind him. His damp linen clung to him, and he could feel his pulse thumping in his own temples. “I fear you take me at something of a disadvantage.” Perseverance Wainwright smiled, very slightly. “I’m glad to see you, John,” he said.

Top Hat Catering Company San Diego can coordinate complete Party catering in San Diego for your event including the bar, white linen and skirting, all support equipment, paper and plastic ware, bartenders, hosted or cash bar service, mixers, sodas and condiments. Catering company in San Diego can work with you to customize a menu to suit your specific needs or budget.

It’s impossible to pick up a basset hound that doesn’t want to be picked up, just as it’s impossible to make one keep walking if it doesn’t want to walk anymore. It’ll just lie down and refuse to budge.

know, Will,” Edmund said. “You needn’t worry. I won’t muck anything up.” He peeled back the duvet, climbed into the bed, and curled himself into a ball. At this, Mrs. Müller appeared in the doorway bearing a load of crisp white linens, patchwork quilts, and hot-water bottles wrapped in knitted cases the same dove gray as the blanket. On top of the teetering pile was a book. As she set her load down on the dressing table, she looked at Edmund. “Lord love you, child.” She went to the bedside, lifted the duvet, and tucked a hot-water bottle at Edmund’s feet. She tested his forehead once again with the palm of her hand. “Perhaps we’ll forgo the clean linens, just for tonight,” she said. “I hate to extract you, Edmund.” “Yes. I mean—thank you,” he murmured. The librarian smiled and looked at William and Anna. “If I had someplace else to put you two, I’d keep you out of the sick room, but short of making up beds on the floor somewhere…” She trailed off. “We’ll be fine,” William said. “Honestly.” Anna nodded in agreement. None of them wanted to be separated, anyhow. “In bed, then,” Mrs. Müller said. “All three of you.” She pulled back the duvet on the other side of the bed and laid down another hot-water bottle. Anna climbed into the middle, and William took his place beside her. The librarian tucked the duvet around the three of them and brushed each one’s cheek with a tenderness that even Edmund found acceptable. She retrieved the book she’d carried in with the linens and handed it to William. “Perhaps you’re all too old for bedtime stories, but what sort of librarian would I be if I didn’t provide you with some reading material?” For a long moment, the children only looked at one another. Mrs. Müller drew the wrong conclusion from their silence. “Oh, dear. You are entirely too old for bedtime stories, aren’t you?” She took a step back. “Not having children of my own, I’m sure to make a mess of these things—” “No,” Anna whispered. “We’re not too old.” Mrs. Müller looked at the boys. “We’re not too old,” William agreed. “Definitely not,” Edmund said, his voice cracking. Perhaps it was his head cold. But probably not. “Well”—the librarian gestured toward the book in William’s hands—“I hope that one will suit you.” “It will,” Anna said. “Good night, then,” the librarian whispered. As she headed for the door, all three children had the same wish. All three children were surprised that it was William who voiced it. “Would you read it to us?

moment.’ She smiled. ‘How old are you, Ned?’ ‘Nineteen.’ ‘You risked your life for me.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the lips briefly but tenderly. ‘Thank you,’ she said. Then she left the room. * MOST PEOPLE BATHED twice a year, in spring and autumn, but princesses were fastidious, and Elizabeth bathed more often. It was a major operation, with maidservants carrying big two-handled laundry tubs of hot water from the kitchen fire to her bedchamber, hurrying up the stairs before the water cooled. She took a bath the day after Swithin’s visit, as if to wash away her disgust. She had said no more about Swithin, after kissing Ned, but Ned thought he had won her trust. Ned knew he had made an enemy of a powerful earl, but he hoped it would not last: Swithin was quick-tempered and vengeful but, Ned thought, he had a short attention span. With luck he would nurse his grudge against Ned only until a better one came along. Sir William Cecil had arrived shortly after Swithin left, and next morning he got down to work with Ned. Cecil’s office was in the same wing as Elizabeth’s private suite. He sent Ned to Tom Parry’s office to fetch a ledger of expenditure for another house Elizabeth owned. Coming back with the heavy book in his hand, Ned walked along Elizabeth’s corridor, where the floorboards were puddled with water spilled by the maids. As he passed her suite, he saw that the door was open, and – stupidly – he glanced in. Elizabeth had just got out of her bath. The tub itself was screened off, but she had stepped across the room to pick up a large white linen sheet with which to dry herself. There should have been a maid waiting beside the tub holding

L. Wilson, editor of the Chicago Evening Journal; and General Henry Eugene Davies, who wrote a pamphlet, Ten Days on the Plains, describing the hunt. Among the others rounding out the group were Leonard W. and Lawrence R. Jerome; General Anson Stager of the Western Union Telegraph Company; Colonel M. V. Sheridan, the general's brother; General Charles Fitzhugh; and Colonel Daniel H. Rucker, acting quartermaster general and soon to be Phil Sheridan's father-in-law. Leonard W. Jerome, a financier, later became the grandfather of Winston Churchill when his second daughter, jenny, married Lord Randolph Churchill. The party arrived at Fort McPherson on September 22, 1871. The New York Herald's first dispatch reported: "General Sheridan and party arrived at the North Platte River this morning, and were conducted to Fort McPherson by General Emery [sic], commanding. General Sheridan reviewed the troops, consisting of four companies of the Fifth Cavalry. The party start[s] across the country tomorrow, guided by the renowned Buffalo Bill and under the escort of Major Brown, Company F, Fifth Cavalry. The party expect[s] to reach Fort Hays in ten days." After Sheridan's review of the troops, the general introduced Buffalo Bill to the guests and assigned them to their quarters in large, comfortable tents just outside the post, a site christened Camp Rucker. The remainder of the day was spent entertaining the visitors at "dinner and supper parties, and music and dancing; at a late hour they retired to rest in their tents." The officers of the post and their ladies spared no expense in their effort to entertain their guests, to demonstrate, perhaps, that the West was not all that wild. The finest linens, glassware, and china the post afforded were brought out to grace the tables, and the ballroom glittered that night with gold braid, silks, velvets, and jewels. Buffalo Bill dressed for the hunt as he had never done before. Despite having retired late, "at five o'clock next morning . . . I rose fresh and eager for the trip, and as it was a nobby and high-toned outfit which I was to accompany, I determined to put on a little style myself. So I dressed in a new suit of buckskin, trimmed along the seams with fringes of the same material; and I put on a crimson shirt handsomely ornamented on the bosom, while on my head I wore a broad sombrero. Then mounting a snowy white horse-a gallant stepper, I rode down from the fort to the camp, rifle in hand. I felt first-rate that morning, and looked well." In all probability, Louisa Cody was responsible for the ornamentation on his shirt, for she was an expert with a needle. General Davies agreed with Will's estimation of his appearance that morning. "The most striking feature of the whole was ... our friend Buffalo Bill.... He realized to perfection the bold hunter and gallant sportsman of the plains." Here again Cody appeared as the

Louis was carefully and thoughtfully dressed, as he had been the night before. He wore a black linen suit of exquisite cut around the waist and the hips, an unusual thing with linen, and another pristine white shirt and dark silk tie. His hair was the usual mass of waves and curls and his green eyes were uncommonly bright. He had fed already this evening, it was plain. And his pale skin was once more suffused with the carnal color of blood. I wondered at all this seductive attention to detail, but I liked it. It seemed to betoken some sort of inner peace, this fastidious dressing, or at least the cessation of inner despair.

Feel the thinness of his body that is cancer eating its way from inside to out and know I’ll be growing old without him. No green drinks or raw diet or holistic doctor over on Flatbush Avenue seems to be helping him. Po’Boy wasting away. Pants half hanging off him even with the tailor on Fulton taking tuck after tuck. Now he’s sitting here in his dark linen suit with his pretty blue shirt underneath and all of it hanging on him like it’s being held up by air. I give his hand another squeeze and he pulls away to look over at me with that smile that says, Don’t even think what you thinking. Smile he passed down to Iris and she handed on to Melody. Lord, I will love that man’s smile till I die. You feel like dancing? he asks me, and I nod. Because I know I don’t have a whole lot more dances with him. I know the dance card God gave us is almost punched through.

Over the previous days I’d assembled in my mind an image of an impulsive, brusque man, someone sour, with enough nerve to try to intimidate anyone he came across in order to get what he wanted. But I was wrong, just as we are almost always wrong when we construct preconceptions on the fragile basis of a single act or a handful of words. I knew I was wrong the moment the blackmailing journalist came through the archway of the courtyard with his tie loose and his light linen suit full of creases.

Elisabeth was the same as ever, and I was the same as ever around her; no longer a confident college senior, I was diminished in her golden presence. In the stale air of the train car, I felt as limp and wrinkled as the sad linen dress I was wearing. While she looked as pressed and poised as a mannequin, not a wrinkle or smudge on her smart silk suit, despite the red dust blowing in through the inadequate windows.

He wore a white linen suit and had silver hair. There was a bottle of brandy on his table and a half-empty glass, and he looked as if he was alone in the world.

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