Today, I’m looking for excerpts that include a description of clothing. I’m not a great one for writing these, but sometimes they really matter to my characters. I recently included in a blog post the clothes that Aldridge wore to Becky; his waistcoat was a subtle jab at Hugh. Often, a person’s clothes (observed by the protagonist) tell our hero or heroine — and the reader — something about that person. Sometimes, the protagonist’s reaction tells us something about them. In House of Thorns, I have Bear making assumptions about Rosa based on her clothes.

Which left him here, with an unknown female under his roof and not another human being within a fifteen minute walk, if Pelman was to be believed.

He peered more closely at the female in question. Could she be Pelman’s sister, come to secure her position? On the whole, he thought not. She looked nothing like the rather fleshy steward, whose receding hair was a dirty blonde rather than this tiny lady’s rich chestnut. Besides, would Pelman dress his sister in near rags, neatly mended and clean, but much washed and threadbare? And the boots displayed by his careless disposition of her skirts were likewise clean and polished, and worn to the point that the woman had tucked cardboard inside the sole.

Poor thing.

And I’ve just written a description of Rosa’s gown for her wedding.

Once Sukie had been despatched with the dressmaker’s maid to fetch Rosa a cup of tea, Rosa asked the dressmaker for directions to a place she could send her letter. Delighted that it was no more than a couple of streets away, she then put the letter out of her mind to focus on the gown.

It was the most beautiful gown Rosa had ever seen; not the light-weight shimmering silk that Bear had initially picked, suitable only for evening, but a figured silk in a slightly heavier weave, made up as a day gown, with a modest scooped bodice and long sleeves. The dusky pink ground bore a repeated motif of stripes and flowers, and the effect had been enhanced by embroidery on the cuffs and hem, using the same shapes and slightly darker colours.

The dressmaker and her seamstresses fussed over the exact fit of the bodice, and the length of the cuffs. There was a pellise, too, short waisted and in a darker rose.

She enjoyed the fitting much more than she had expected, which made the hour fly past. “We have little to do, ma’am,” the dressmaker said, at last. “An hour, no more. You are welcome to wait, or if you have errands…?”

An hour. With the rest of the hen money in her reticule, and a wedding present for Bear to purchase, it would be barely enough.