She talks about the character being soaked through and taking off his coat and then his waistcoat, and then his skin showing erotically through the 'chemise' that was all that he was wearing under the waistcoat... the mental image was a trifle incongruous ;)
Hang on, let me find the passage online...
He peeled off his dripping coat and draped it over a painted Chinese screen that stood near the fire. The rain had soaked even his waistcoat and chemise. “I’m afraid I’m too wet to even sit down. Mind if I—?” He gestured at his waistcoat.
Camille shook her head and he quickly unbuttoned his wet garments and hung them on the screen. She was having some difficulty speaking. The fine fabric of his chemise had become translucent and clung to his skin, revealing the planes of his shoulders, arms, chest. Tenderly, she pushed back a lock of his inky hair so she could see his face. Fatigue had painted shadows in the hollows of his face, and his warm brown skin had gone dull and worn.
But what mattered was that he was safe. She touched him along the muscled slant of his neck, where his shirt had fallen open.
'Chemise' and 'shirt' are fairly clearly intended as synonymous here, I think, though it was the former I remembered as being mentioned in this context due to the surprise of it ;)
(The only reason *why* he is soaked to the skin is that the character gratuitously chose to stand under her window and throw pebbles "for a very long time" until she woke, then climb up the drainpipe, instead of (as Camille points out) simply coming in through the front door like a normal person -- the author obviously wanted her movie-Raoul-in-a-wet-shirt moment without the excuse of having a lake where the boat was on the wrong side :-p)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2024-07-12 06:30 pm (UTC)Hang on, let me find the passage online...
'Chemise' and 'shirt' are fairly clearly intended as synonymous here, I think, though it was the former I remembered as being mentioned in this context due to the surprise of it ;)
(The only reason *why* he is soaked to the skin is that the character gratuitously chose to stand under her window and throw pebbles "for a very long time" until she woke, then climb up the drainpipe, instead of (as Camille points out) simply coming in through the front door like a normal person -- the author obviously wanted her movie-Raoul-in-a-wet-shirt moment without the excuse of having a lake where the boat was on the wrong side :-p)