Log Lady Quotes

I weave through all these happy, smiling faces, knowing that we have put on the best show we could—and I do love putting on a good performance, whether sacred or profane.   Log

After a long and happy life, I find myself at the pearly gates (a sight of great joy; the word for “pearl” in Greek is, by the way, margarita). Standing there is St. Peter. This truly is heaven, for finally my academic questions will receive answers. I immediately begin the questions that have been plaguing me for half a century: “Can you speak Greek? Where did you go when you wandered off in the middle of Acts? How was the incident between you and Paul in Antioch resolved? What happened to your wife?” Peter looks at me with some bemusement and states, “Look, lady, I’ve got a whole line of saved people to process. Pick up your harp and slippers here, and get the wings and halo at the next table. We’ll talk after dinner.” As I float off, I hear, behind me, a man trying to gain Peter’s attention. He has located a “red letter Bible,” which is a text in which the words of Jesus are printed in red letters. This is heaven, and all sorts of sacred art and Scriptures, from the Bhagavad Gita to the Qur’an, are easily available (missing, however, was the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version). The fellow has his Bible open to John 14, and he is frenetically pointing at v. 6: “Jesus says here, in red letters, that he is the way. I’ve seen this woman on television (actually, she’s thinner in person). She’s not Christian; she’s not baptized - she shouldn’t be here!” “Oy,” says Peter, “another one - wait here.” He returns a few minutes later with a man about five foot three with dark hair and eyes. I notice immediately that he has holes in his wrists, for when the empire executes an individual, the circumstances of that death cannot be forgotten. “What is it, my son?” he asks. The man, obviously nonplussed, sputters, “I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t you say that no one comes to the Father except through you?” “Well,” responds Jesus, “John does have me saying this.” (Waiting in line, a few other biblical scholars who overhear this conversation sigh at Jesus’s phrasing; a number of them remain convinced that Jesus said no such thing. They’ll have to make the inquiry on their own time.) “But if you flip back to the Gospel of Matthew, which does come first in the canon, you’ll notice in chapter 25, at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, that I am not interested in those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but in those who do their best to live a righteous life: feeding the hungry, visiting people in prison . . . ” Becoming almost apoplectic, the man interrupts, “But, but, that’s works righteousness. You’re saying she’s earned her way into heaven?” “No,” replies Jesus, “I am not saying that at all. I am saying that I am the way, not you, not your church, not your reading of John’s Gospel, and not the claim of any individual Christian or any particular congregation. I am making the determination, and it is by my grace that anyone gets in, including you. Do you want to argue?” The last thing I recall seeing, before picking up my heavenly accessories, is Jesus handing the poor man a Kleenex to help get the log out of his eye.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and jumped when I turned and found Ren’s brother standing behind me as a man. Ren got up, alert, and watched him carefully, suspicious of Kishan’s every move. Ren’s tail twitched back and forth, and a deep grumble issued from his chest. Kishan look down at Ren, who had crept even closer to keep an eye on him, and then looked back at me. He reached out his hand, and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips and kissed it, then bowed deeply with great aplomb. “May I ask your name?” “My name is Kelsey. Kelsey hayes.” “Kelsey. Well, I, for one, appreciate all the efforts you have made on our behalf. I apologize if I frightened you earlier. I am,” he smiled, “out of practice in conversing with young ladies. These gifts you will be offering to Durga. Would you kindly tell me more about them?” Ren growled unhappily. I nodded. “Is Kishan your given name?” “My full name is actually Sohan Kishan Rajaram, but you can call me Kishan if you like.” He smiled a dazzling white smile, which was even more brilliant due to the contrast with his dark skin. He offered an arm. “Would you please sit and talk with me, Kelsey?” There was something very charming about Kishan. I surprised myself by finding I immediately trusted and liked him. He had a quality similar to his brother. Like Ren, he had the ability to set a person completely at ease. Maybe it was their diplomatic training. Maybe it was how their mother raised them. Whatever it was made me respond positively. I smiled at him. “I’d love to.” He tucked my arm under his and walked with me over to the fire. Ren growled again, and Kishan shot a smirk in his direction. I noticed him wince when he sat, so I offered him some aspirin. “Shouldn’t we be getting you two to a doctor? I really think you might need stitches and Ren-“ “Thank you, but no. You don’t need to worry about our minor pains.” “I wouldn’t exactly call your wounds minor, Kishan.” “The curse helps us to heal quickly. You’ll see. We’ll both recover swiftly enough on our own. Still, it was nice to have such a lovely young woman tending to my injuries.” Ren stood in front of us and looked like he was a tiger suffering from apoplexy. I admonished, “Ren, be civil.” Kishan smiled widely and waited for me to get comfortable. Then he scooted closer to me and rested his arm on the log behind my shoulders. Ren stepped right between us, nudged his brother roughly aside with his furry head, creating a wider space, and maneuvered his body into the middle. He dropped heavily to the ground and rested his head in my lap. Kishan frowned, but I started talking, sharing the story of what Ren and I had been through. I told him about meeting Ren at the circus and about how he tricked me to get me to India. I talked about Phet, the Cave of Kanheri, and finding the prophecy, and I told him that we were on our way to Hampi. As I lost myself in our story, I stroked Ren’s head. He shut his eyes and purred, and then he fell asleep. I talked for almost an hour, barely registering Kishan’s raised eyebrow and thoughtful expression as he watched the two of us together. I didn’t even notice when he’d changed back into a tiger.

FatherMichael has entered the room Wildflower: Ah don’t tell me you’re through a divorce yourself Father? SureOne: Don’t be silly Wildflower, have a bit of respect! He’s here for the ceremony. Wildflower: I know that. I was just trying to lighten the atmosphere. FatherMichael: So have the loving couple arrived yet? SureOne: No but it’s customary for the bride to be late. FatherMichael: Well is the groom here? SingleSam has entered the room Wildflower: Here he is now. Hello there SingleSam. I think this is the first time ever that both the bride and groom will have to change their names. SingleSam: Hello all. Buttercup: Where’s the bride? LonelyLady: Probably fixing her makeup. Wildflower: Oh don’t be silly. No one can even see her. LonelyLady: SingleSam can see her. SureOne: She’s not doing her makeup; she’s supposed to keep the groom waiting. SingleSam: No she’s right here on the laptop beside me. She’s just having problems with her password logging in. SureOne: Doomed from the start. Divorced_1 has entered the room Wildflower: Wahoo! Here comes the bride, all dressed in . . . SingleSam: Black. Wildflower: How charming. Buttercup: She’s right to wear black. Divorced_1: What’s wrong with misery guts today? LonelyLady: She found a letter from Alex that was written 12 years ago proclaiming his love for her and she doesn’t know what to do. Divorced_1: Here’s a word of advice. Get over it, he’s married. Now let’s focus the attention on me for a change. SoOverHim has entered the room FatherMichael: OK let’s begin. We are gathered here online today to witness the marriage of SingleSam (soon to be “Sam”) and Divorced_1 (soon to be “Married_1”). SoOverHim: WHAT?? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? THIS IS A MARRIAGE CEREMONY IN A DIVORCED PEOPLE CHAT ROOM?? Wildflower: Uh-oh, looks like we got ourselves a gate crasher here. Excuse me can we see your wedding invite please? Divorced_1: Ha ha. SoOverHim: YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY? YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK, COMING IN HERE AND TRYING TO UPSET OTHERS WHO ARE GENUINELY TROUBLED. Buttercup: Oh we are genuinely troubled alright. And could you please STOP SHOUTING. LonelyLady: You see SoOverHim, this is where SingleSam and Divorced_1 met for the first time. SoOverHim: OH I HAVE SEEN IT ALL NOW! Buttercup: Sshh! SoOverHim: Sorry. Mind if I stick around? Divorced_1: Sure grab a pew; just don’t trip over my train. Wildflower: Ha ha. FatherMichael: OK we should get on with this; I don’t want to be late for my 2 o’clock. First I have to ask, is there anyone in here who thinks there is any reason why these two should not be married? LonelyLady: Yes. SureOne: I could give more than one reason. Buttercup: Hell yes. SoOverHim: DON’T DO IT! FatherMichael: Well I’m afraid this has put me in a very tricky predicament. Divorced_1: Father we are in a divorced chat room, of course they all object to marriage. Can we get on with it? FatherMichael: Certainly. Do you Sam take Penelope to be your lawful wedded wife? SingleSam: I do. FatherMichael: Do you Penelope take Sam to be your lawful wedded husband? Divorced_1: I do (yeah, yeah my name is Penelope). FatherMichael: You have already e-mailed your vows to me so by the online power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride. Now if the witnesses could click on the icon to the right of the screen they will find a form to type their names, addresses, and phone numbers. Once that’s filled in just e-mail it off to me. I’ll be off now. Congratulations again. FatherMichael has left the room Wildflower: Congrats Sam and Penelope! Divorced_1: Thanks girls for being here. SoOverHim: Freaks. SoOverHim has left the room

There seemed to be so many things that I needed, but I held myself in check and purchased only essentials - with the exception of one extravagance. I had determined that I would drink my tea like a lady, even in a log house; so I purchased a teapot and two cups and saucers of fine china. I felt somehow Mama's mind would be much more at ease about me if she knew that I was having my tea in the proper fashion. After all, civilization could not be too far away from Pine Springs if I had such amenities!

Trent Kite told Fackelmann he thought Gately was out of his fucking mind. Fax observed that Kite himself was not exactly a W. T. Sherman with the ladies, even with coke-whores and strung-out nursing students and dipsoid lounge-hags whose painted faces swung loose from their heads. Fackelmann claimed to have started a Log just to keep track of Kite’s attempted pickup lines—surefire lines like e.g. ‘You’re the second most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, the first most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen being former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,’ and ‘If you came home with me I’m unusually confident that I could achieve an erection,’ and said that if Kite wasn’t still cherry at twenty-three and a half it was proof of some kind of divine-type grace.

Southern Hospitality with a Smidgen of Homicide It creams my corn to think I've been accused of murder. ​​​​​​ I'm a handyman in the Daniel Boone National Park. My main employer is Mae West at the Happy Trails Campground. When I got a phone call to take down some trees on this guy's property for a side hustle, I jumped at the change. That's one of the biggest money making jobs around these parts. Unfortunately I got hauled off to jail after I was accused of being part of an illegal logging crew. Simple enough, I gave Sheriff Hank Sharp the name of the man who hired me, only he was found murdered by one of my tools. Not only am I accused of illegal logging, now I'm the number one suspect in this man's murder. It just creams my corn to be accused of murder. There's only one person I trust to get me out of this mess and that's Maybelline West. I'm sure she, along with her nosy friends, the Laundry Club Ladies, will snoop around to help clear my name.

Celia froze. She couldn't believe it-Proper Pinter was kissing her. Hard, boldly, with more feeling than the duke. Good heavens. Stung by the challenge he'd laid down, she fumbled for the pistol in her reticule, but she'd just got it in her hand when he whispered hoarsely against her lips, "Sweet God, Celia..." He'd never called her by only her Christian name. He'd certainly never said it so...desperately. It made her hesitate with the pistol in her hand. He took her mouth once more, and her world shifted on its axis as his kiss became wilder, more consuming. This wasn't about a challenge anymore-not when he kissed her is if her mouth held the secret to eternity. Such lovely, drugging kisses made her blood dance through her veins. His mouth slanted over hers, and his tongue swept the seam of her lips with an urgency that made her throat ache. Remembering how Ned had kissed her, she parted her lips for him. He went still for the briefest instant. Then with a groan, he slipped his tongue into her mouth. Ohhh, that was amazing. When Ned had done it she'd found it messy and disgusting, but Mr. Pinter's kiss was as opposite to Ned's as sun was to rain. Slow and sensual, he dove inside with hot strokes that had her eager for more. How could this be happening to her? With him? Who could ever have guessed that the passionless Mr. Pinter could kiss so very passionately? Scarcely aware of what she did, she slipper her free hand up to clutch his neck. He pressed into her, flattening her against the wall as he ravished her mouth with no remorse. His whiskers abraded her chin, his mouth tasted of champagne, and the smell of orange trees sweetened the air around them. It was delicious...it was intoxicating. Paradise. She forgot the pistol in her other hand, forgot that they were in full view of anyone who might be outside the orangery windows, forgot that he'd just been lecturing her as if she were some ninnyhammer. Because he was kissing her now as if she were an angel. His angel. And Lord help her, but she wanted him to keep kissing her like that forever. But a noise from the nearby stove-the crackle of a log as it settled-seemed to jerk him to his senses. He tore his lips from hers and stared down at her a moment, his eyes wild, his breathing heavy. A change came over his face, turning his expression to cold stone. "You see, Lady Celia?" he said in his harsh rasp. "A man can do anything he wants if he has a woman alone.

I had the most powerful magic, and the need to use it.  Lifting my right hand, I summoned forth my Mana, converted it into magic, and spoke my own word of power.  Much to her surprise, I could still cast with my right hand, despite its missing digits.   “You aren’t really going to do this, are you?” Shart asked.  He was making his way over to me with only the barest hint of floundering. “Hoopie!” The spell pierced her barrier, turning the now useless boundary a bright blue.  Her expression was a mix of terror and amazement as the spell bypassed her defenses and impacted her.  Her ass exploded in an echoing cacophony of flatulence. It was literally the loudest fart I’d ever heard.  As someone whose mother-in-law used to regularly drive people from the room with her anal symphonies, I considered myself an expert.  I highly suspected Bashara was the kind of lady who didn’t fart in public; she must have been saving that one up all day.  She blinked several times, as she checked her status log.  It was time to execute the second part of my plan. Grabbing Shart, amidst his squawking protests, I yelled my battlecry. “Poke-Shart, Go!” Then, I flung the invisible demon straight at her head. Shart only weighed thirty pounds or so; I was more than strong enough to fling him at a pretty good clip.  His cry of “you bastard” slowly faded the further he flew.     I had hoped that being hit in the face would knock her off balance.  That would have given me a moment to pick up my sword and close.  Actually, I hoped it was possible to hit her at all; despite Shart’s ability to fly, he wasn’t very aerodynamic.  I couldn’t win a spell duel, considering I had only one good hand and didn’t know any good spells.  I was going to have to engage her in combat.  I sincerely hoped that my invisible familiar would give me an advantage. I hadn’t calculated on hitting the top of her head with Shart’s Belly Button of Holding.  Her head disappeared, completely buried down to the top of her shoulders.  Her body, however, still worked.  She was careening around, her hands furiously pushing on the demon.  The remaining bandit, coincidentally, looked at Bashara just as her head vanished.  Incorrectly assuming that I had some sort of head vanishing spell, he tried to break and run.   You can’t run away from a homicidal badger.   I managed to get within arms’ reach of Bashara, just as she had successfully begun pushing Shart off her head. She had freed her mouth and was screaming.  As she continued pushing, her nose popped free.  I felt only slightly bad when I grabbed the demon and pushed him all the way down.  In seconds, only her feet were exposed.  Then, I pushed those in as well.

You break her heart, and you’ll have to deal with me and her three brothers, and if you survive that, Her Grace will ensure your social ruin unto the nineteenth generation. I remind you, all of my boys are crack shots and more than competent with a sword.” “It is not my intention to break her heart.” “Oh, it’s never our intention.” His Grace’s brows drew down in thought, and he was once again the affable paterfamilias. “Maggie is different. I hope that’s from being the oldest daughter, but her unfortunate origins are too obvious a factor to be dismissed. She’s in want of… dreams, I think. My other girls have dreams. Sophie dreamed of her own family, Jenny loves to paint, Louisa has her literary scribbling, and Evie must racket about the property as her brothers used to, but Maggie has never been a dreamer. Not about her first pony nor her first waltz nor her first… beau.” Nor her first lover. The words hung unspoken in the air while the fire crackled and hissed and a log fell amid a shower of sparks. It wasn’t what Ben would have expected any papa to say of his daughter, but then, marrying into a family meant details like this would be shared—Esther Windham misplaced her everyday jewels, and Percy thought his daughters should be entitled to dream. In a different way, it felt as if Ben were still lurking in doorways and climbing through windows, but this window was called marriage, and Maggie was trying to lock it shut with Ben on the outside. “I’m not sure Maggie wants to marry me.” It was as close as he’d come to touching on the circumstances of the betrothal. His Grace regarded him for a long moment. “I’m her papa, but I was a young man once, Hazelton. Maggie is only a bit younger than Devlin and a few months older than Bart would have been. When I married, I had no idea either of my two oldest progeny existed. I’d no sooner started filling my nursery when—before my heir was out of dresses—both women came forward, hurling accusations and threats. If my marriage can survive that onslaught, surely you can overcome a little stubbornness in my daughter?” It was, again, an insight into the Windham family Ben gained only because he was engaged to marry Maggie. Such confidences prompted a rare inclination toward direct speech. “I think Maggie’s dream is to be left alone. If she jilts me, she’ll have one more excuse to retire from life, to hide and tell herself she’s content.” “Content.” His Grace spat the word. “Bother content. Content is milk toast and pap when life is supposed to be a banquet. Make Maggie’s dreams come true, young Hazelton, and show her contentment is shoddy goods compared to happiness.” “You make it sound simple.” “We’re speaking of women and that particular subspecies of the genre referred to as wives. It is simple—devote yourself to her happiness, and you will be rewarded tenfold. I do not, however, say the undertaking will ever be easy.

There is no greater example of double standards in leadership than First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Is it too inconvenient or cumbersome for her to follow the same rules that agents in the field have to follow? Maybe it would make morale too high? Clinton’s behavior harkens to the old motto: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” Once when my encoder to log in to my work email malfunctioned, I couldn’t even file my invoice to get paid for the month through my personal email, because it wasn’t protected enough. I was told that a potential enemy could use my invoice against the country, and I believe that’s the truth. It’s truer for a secretary of state and the material he or she handles. Still, we’re asked to believe nothing inappropriate happened, no slip-ups, no wrongdoing. It all reeks of “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

with an Excel spreadsheet?” I made a face like that was ridiculous, but of course there had been an Excel spreadsheet. As soon as everyone was ready, we set off. Joni tramped away in one direction with my seven-year-old, Maggie, whose foghorn voice sent birds skittering into the sky as she harangued her aunt to hurry so they could get back first. “It’s not a race,” Joni said, fading into the tree line. “I want to get the biggest log,” Maggie bellowed. Joni’s own kid, Lola, refused to leave the camp. With the infinite disdain of a teenager, she said there was no need to fatigue ourselves. Fatigue ourselves. Lola went gliding in her slow-motion gait to pluck dead twigs from the trees, like a nymph picking enchanted fruit for a heartsick knight. She high-stepped off into the undergrowth and, for all I knew, changed into a deer, such was the inscrutable nature of my niece, the Lady Lola. By contrast, the all too scrutable Billy was screaming to go with the big boys, who I knew would abandon him up a tree given half a chance. “Carry me,” he said no more than five feet from the camp. So he scrambled onto my shoulders, his arms clamped in a fierce little

question it is to question a fact as established as the tide. How easily and quickly we slide into our race-pattern unless we keep intact the stiff-necked and blinded pattern of the recent intellectual training. We threw it over, and there wasn’t much to throw over, and we felt good about it. This Lady, of plaster and wood and paint, is one of the strong ecological factors of the town of Loreto, and not to know her and her strength is to fail to know Loreto. One could not ignore a granite monolith in the path of the waves. Such a rock, breaking the rushing waters, would have an effect on animal distribution radiating in circles like a dropped stone in a pool. So has this plaster Lady a powerful effect on the deep black water of the human spirit. She may disappear and her name be lost, as the Magna Mater, as Isis, have disappeared. But something very like her will take her place, and the longings which created her will find somewhere in the world a similar altar on which to pour their force. No matter what her name is, Artemis, or Venus, or a girl behind a Woolworth counter vaguely remembered, she is as eternal as our species, and we will continue to manufacture her as long as we survive.

Could it be possible?—as by the match with which Stuyvesant and I lighted our cigars, we saw my watch—ten o’clock! “Stuyvesant,” I whispered, “we are in for an adventure sure enough. I don’t know exactly where we are, but the horses are about used up, and I’m frozen.” He turned and boldly told the party our situation, trying to make it out as a jolly good joke. The ladies did not appreciate it, except little Lucy. She did not say much, but evidently thought it a most delightful experience of romantic reality. Adelaide and Mrs. Grayson were really alarmed, and I am pretty sure that as we drove on again, I heard Cousin Daisy repeating parts of Eastman’s Snow Storm: “But cold and dead by the sunken log, Are they who came from the town.” We pushed on for another half hour, which seemed a whole night time, and then pulled up before a farmhouse, in which the inmates were a long while under blankets. A rascally cur screeched and yelped at us. That, however, and our united voices calling for about ten minutes, aroused someone, for we heard a sash frostily resist lifting, and a male nightmare full voice say, “What in the devil do you want?” Stuyvesant asked for the necessary information, and we learned that we were twelve miles from our destination and four from the nearest village. The window dropped with a bang, but the word reached me, too, something like “jam,” or “slam,” or “ram.” “Ho! Halloo!” sang out Stuyvesant in alarm, “where in the mischief are you driving, Earnest? Here we are over the runners in a drift.” The fact is, I had my eyes on a dark, irregular building just ahead, and I was trying to make out if it was a poorhouse or a jail.

Dear Lord, you are a vampire,” Eva gasped, then covered her mouth to keep the wayward thing from spouting any other unwanted revelations. Connall stiffened, his eyes shooting to her face. He had the oddest expression on his face, she noted. He looked . . . scared? Nay, apprehensive was a better description, and Eva had to wonder why he was looking so apprehensive when he was the soulless— Nay, not soulless, she reminded herself, recalling their conversation from the night before. He was not dead, nor soulless, he had assured her and he did not kill those he bit. Connall had described himself as just different and while Eva thought that was something of an understatement, she reassured herself with that information, now. He was just different, still her husband, the kind, sweet, gentle man who had treated her as if she had value, and shown her such consideration, as well as taught her passion. Nothing else had changed, she reminded herself as her head began to spin. He was the clan chief of the MacAdie, and her husband. And really, as flaws went, vampirism was much more pleasant to deal with than his being a wife beater or some such thing. Wasn’t it? “Dear Lord,” Eva breathed, shaking her head at her own thoughts, then she glanced to Connall again. He was uncharacteristically silent, his attention focused on her with an intensity that made her nervous. Her husband hadn’t said a word since she’d blurted that he was a vampire and it was making her uncomfortable enough to start searching her mind for a way to make him leave. “If you have things to do, you need not trouble yourself to wait here for me to finish eating. I can manage well enough on my own,” she murmured at last, though the food was all gone. “Tis no trouble to be with ye,” he said with a frown and there was sudden anger on his face. “Yer no a burden to me, Eva, ye ne’er ha’e been and ne’er will be. Dear God, ye saved me life this morn, woman, no once, but twice. Ha’e ye no realized yer worth yet?” “I—” Eva shook her head helplessly, confused by the tears suddenly pooling in her eyes. His vehemence was as surprising to her as the words themselves. She had saved his life that morning. She’d driven the intruder off with the log, then . . . well all right, the feeding bit wasn’t that impressive. Anyone would have done in that instance, but she had fended off the intruder. “Ye’ve courage and beauty and intelligence and are a worthy wife. E’en a king would ha’e pride in claimin’ ye to wife. I have felt nothing but pride in claimin’ ye meself.” “Despite my bein’ accident prone?” she teased with a wry twist of the lips. “Yer accidents are a result o’ tryin’ too hard to earn a place here,” he said quietly. “But ’tis only because you doonae realize ye already ha’e a place here. Yer the Lady MacAdie. My wife.” Eva swallowed, her gaze dropping from his at those words. They made her heart ache for some reason. “Why do ye look away? Do ye hate me now?” Eva glanced back up with surprise. “What?” “Now that ye know what I am?” he explained. “Will ye be wantin’ an annulment? Beggin’ to be set free? Wid ye rather a mortal man to husband? Should I take ye back to Caxton?” Eva stared at him in horror, fear clutching at her heart at the very idea of what he suggested.

The man's gaze hesitated on the four-inch cut on Joe's left cheek, courtesy of the log that had slapped him in the face on the river. With twenty-some stitches sticking out, the wound looked like a giant red caterpillar was crawling across Joe's face. "Well, that'll disappoint the ladies." But then the captain grunted. "Never mind. With you, they'll probably like it, think it's all manly." He peered behind Joe. "Anyone naked in there?" Joe stepped aside. "I'm having an off morning.

If I may be so bold, sir,” the butler spoke up, causing Sebastian to start. Good lord, he hadn’t even realized he was still there. “I could not help but notice that you seemed to have quarreled with Miss Westforth.” Sebastian grunted in response. “She is your old friend from home.” The butler shrugged. “She will forgive you. Of course, may I suggest that you beg forgiveness as soon as possible? That seems the smoothest way to go about these things. Especially when you know someone as well as you know Miss Westforth.” “That’s just it!” Sebastian cried, with more vehemence than he realized he’d felt. “I do know Susie – Miss Westforth. And that fashionable creature is not her!” The Susie Sebastian knew would have laughed at a crowd of men vying for her attention. She would have rather been reading or working on puzzles or… “She is acting foolish, and I simply point this out, and I am told off for it. She’s dancing with Parkhurst and… and laughing with him, for God’s sake!” “Mr. Parkhurst is perhaps not the most humor-inducing young man here,” the butler agreed solemnly. “But how is Miss Westforth’s dancing and laughing different from any other young lady’s actions tonight?” “It’s…. it just is.” Sebastian said stubbornly. “And her dress… it’s unseemly!” “Actually, I have it on good authority that Miss Westforth’s gown is of the highest fashion and appropriate modesty for a young lady of nineteen.” Nineteen . God, hadn’t she just been sixteen and all bony angles? “How do you know all this?” Sebastian grumbled after a time. “About Miss Westforth’s gown… and how we are old friends, come to think of it.” The butler simply shrugged. “I am Philbert, sir. I know everything.” “Did you know that she tried to kiss me, then?” Sebastian mumbled, kicking his boot against the grey stone balustrade. Philbert’s mouth crooked up. “In the ballroom? How very forward.” “No, not now. She told me she tried to kiss me before.” “Before…?” “Before I went away. But apparently I wasn’t paying attention, and she ended up kissing a log.” “And were you?” Philbert asked. Sebastian’s eyebrow went up, not understanding. “Were you not paying attention,” he clarified. “Or did you know she tried to kiss you?” Sebastian felt another shift in the world beneath his feet. Smaller this time, but so, so important. Something clicking into place. “No. I suppose I did know. I just pretended it hadn’t happened.” He’d seen it. Just out of the corner of his eye, but he’d seen it. Three years ago, after a long run on their horses, breathless, her cheeks flushed and lovely. Sitting nearly leg to leg with him on that felled tree. And his heart had skipped a beat. A rush of… something had him standing before her lips could touch his cheek. “Why did you pretend it hadn’t happened?” Philbert asked quietly. “Because it would have changed things,” Sebastian answered in kind. A

Beauty, she realised as her heart hammered, was not social or subjective. True beauty was catastrophic, irresistible as the rushing tides, crashing over and through all feeble attempts to say what was fair and what was not. Like the woodland vista that made the breath catch and the spirit soar, beauty was an irresistible force of nature, and to try to tell which particular branch – which particular leaf – was most appealing was to miss the forest for the trees. No single thing she saw in Lady Ceistyl was more beautiful than any other. Nor could the fey be reduced to separate features, complimented on any one part. And even were Elly to try, no words were rich enough, no paint held hues that could capture the colour Lady Ceistyl brought with her as she appeared beside the watching wolf atop the fallen log.

Helen Bilch is currently channelling every angry mother who has ever walked the face of God’s green earth, and as such has complete control over my actions. I’m pretty sure that if you stuck this lady in a room with every male world leader, the planet’s problems would all be solved in about half an hour flat – just in time for tea.

If Fibber McGee supplied a subtitle for this book, it would likely be “A lengthy log listing the legendary shows of the loquacious leader and his laudable lady who landed loads of laughable lines in the laps of lots of lads and lasses who loved listening in locales from the lofty ledges of Leadville to luscious Lake Louise.

Here's Tuukka: better than six foot tall, got that rangy Nordic thing, like he skis and shoots and he can do that all day and still make the hot tub a real special place for a group of inclined ladies and then get up the next morning eat a bear for breakfast and log cabin motherfucker his way up Everest or what the fuck you want.

You wanted a traditional Christmas. And it is not a traditional Christmas without a Yule log.” He opened his arms and I went into them, absurdly, wholly delighted with this enigmatic man that I had married. “But you do not like tradition,” I murmured into his ear. “I like you,” he replied. His arms tightened about me, and I went on tiptoe to thank him with a kiss. My brothers made appropriately appalled noises and Aquinas shepherded the staff out with promises of warm punch in the kitchen. “If we are burning a Yule log, we really ought to hang the holly and the ivy,” I mused.

Literature (as we understand it) would then be a fool’s occupation. You might as well be stroking a log.

Listen and listen good Log Lady. This wood fetish might be cute in Twin Peaks, but it sure ain't gonna cut it here.