1805-1810 ca. White Silk Waistcoat. Embroidered pink flowers on lapels and hem, horizontal front pockets. via McCord Museum, Canada. musee-mccord.qc.ca
Typical of a gentleman’s waistcoat, or vest, worn during the early 1800s, or Regency Era, or Jane Austen’s times with a standing collar plus fold back collar, straight cut, front pockets, and heavily embroidered with a floral design to make it stand out.
19th Century Mid. The Music Room By George Goodwin Kilburne (1839-1924). Oil On Panel, 30.4 X 40.6cm. Via Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org (PD-ART)
Kelly’s Justice. I lived in Vanuatu, South Pacific, for 9 years and loved setting my book there.
Blurb: Kelly normally needs no help solving international security problems, but when someone from her past damages her reputation and threatens her life, she needs assistance. Joining forces with her old friend from the Australian army, now an expert on South Pacific politics, they destroy an island drug cartel and rescue kidnapped teenagers. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveKellysJustice
Excerpt
Kelly and Grant had guessed correctly that the other three kidnappers had no weapons because as soon a bullet was fired they turned and bolted around the shed, one on the left and two on the right. They sprinted towards them, but no-telephone-man quickly re-emerged through the shed door holding a weapon.
Kelly made a lightning change of direction and came at him from the side with a solid round house kick which knocked the rifle from his hands and the gun flew up into the air. She followed up with a chop to his neck, a knee to his groin and finished him off with a two-handed blow to his head. The man went down in a heap, screaming in pain, presumably from a burst ear drum.
Jacky’s voice called from one hundred meters down the road where she and Terry were closing in at a fast pace. “We’ve got this. Go after the runners.”
Kelly shot around the right of the buildings and sprinted after the two unarmed men who had crazily trampled their way through the undergrowth, giving her a clear path to follow them. She mentally thanked Marci and her grueling fitness course, because the long hours they’d all put in scrambling over and under obstacles and working out in the gym had honed her fitness so she wasn’t even puffing when she came up behind the pair of runaways. When she caught them up, they used their least bit of energy to try to run ahead with a desperate burst of speed.
Kelly kicked the feet out from the slower of the two and he hit the ground face down and slid, squalling like a baby as branches stripped skin from his face and ripped his clothing. When she lifted her foot to the side of his head, he squealed like a pig and covered his bleeding head with his arms. Quick as a flash, she took the chance to grab his arms and zip tie his hands behind his head. Planting her foot in the small of his back, she yelled, “Stay down or I’ll shoot.”
The quaking man might not have understood the language she spoke, but he sure as hell understood her gun digging into his temple and her finger pointing at the ground. The idiot frantically nodded, chanting something in his own language while his sobs increased and his chants became wails. He sounded like a two year old having a temper tantrum. Huh, not a trained operative then.
Jacky would only need to follow the wailing to find this one. Kelly took off again through the scrub, but the faster man had been so panicked he’d plowed through bushes and broken branches and left her an open trail to follow. She jumped broken bushes, weaved in and out of the dense scrub and sighted her prey just ahead.
“Stop or I’ll shoot,” she screamed in every language she knew. He fleetingly turned a frightened face to her, but then raced off again. “Shit,” she muttered, raising her pistol. They’d all practiced firing on the run at the compound, over and over. Even though it wasn’t Kelly’s best skill, Marci’s insistence on them being at least proficient at armed pursuit proved a blessing. She lifted her arm and fired. The guy screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his right leg as blood poured from his knee. Even with one leg out of action, he tried to shuffle backwards towards the scrub.
Kelly stood over him, her weapon now aimed at his groin, when Grant came rushing up. Bending over, hands to his knees, he sucked in some deep breaths.
“Christ, Kelly.” He struggled to catch his breath. “I heard the shot and thought it was you.” Ignoring the man groaning on the ground, he pulled her in for a hug, despite them both wearing bullet proof vests and layered clothing. “I swear my heart stopped,” he muttered onto the top of her head. The wounded man writhed on the ground, grasping his bent leg and moaning loudly. “Wow, Kel, good shooting there. Got his knee from behind while he was running.”
“Yeah, well,” Kelly muttered. “Marci, my boss, won’t be happy.”
“Really?” Grant held her away from him but kept his hands on her upper arms. “Why the hell not?”
“Because we trained hard for this, and I have one of the best hit rates.”
“So?” Grant said, looking puzzled.
“I was aiming for his lower leg, not his knee.”
Grant burst out laughing. “Then don’t tell her. Our secret.”
1817 December Black Walking Mourning Dress, English. Black bombazine dress with a black crepe hem, with tight bodice wrapping across to the right side, trimmed with a piping of black crape that looks like braiding and finished by rosettes of crape, in the center of each of which is a small jet ornament. Long sleeves trimmed similarly at the wrists, half-sleeve of a new form trimmed with crape, high standing collar displaying a mourning ruff. Claremont bonnet, named because it is the same shape as one worn by the Princess, whose home with her husband, Prince Leopold, was called Claremont. Black crape over black sarsnet and lined with double white crape. Low crown but large front and tastefully finished by black crape with a bunch of crape flowers on one side. Black shamois gloves, and black shoes. “We have again to acknowledge our obligations to the lady who favored us last month; and we understand that the dresses from which our prints this month have been taken were also purchased from Mrs. Bell of St. James’s-street.” Fashion Plate via Rudolph Ackermann’s ‘The Repository of Arts’.
Mrs. Bell ‘invented’ fashion plates and as well as publishing in La Belle assemblee, she also sold them to other magazines. Hence the crossover we often see where the same plate, or a similar version, appears in different magazines.
