Sup with the Devil Read Online Free

upstairs and get it, would you? And thrash the little maggot if he’s there. Shall we take ourselves off, Horace, while you visit with your aunt? I daresay Ryland only showed her up to make sure I came along to his Greek class and didn’t get sent down, which old Hogden promised he would, if I’m late again. When class is done, m’am,” he added with a bow, “I trust you’ll join us for dinner at the Golden Stair? Diomede”—he leaned through the staircase door to call after the ascending slave—“after you’ve provided cocoa for Mrs. Adams, run along to the Golden Stair and bespeak a dinner for five. Oh, and fetch me my—”
    Patiently, the servant reappeared, took from the seat of the other chair the red gown and four-square cap of scholarship—Abigail could see Horace’s hanging on a peg on the wall—and held them out to his master.
    “You’re a wonder, Diomede . . .” Fairfield called back over his shoulder as he dove through the door. “And if you don’t save me some of whatever’s in that basket, Thaxter”—his voice trailed back up the stairs—“I shall tell Mr. Pugh you’ve been tupping his mistress—”
    Weyountah said, “I’ll be in the laboratory should you need me, Thaxter,” and with a bow to Abigail, departed.
    The room seemed suddenly, echoingly quiet.
    Horace’s breath blew out in a sigh. “Aunt Abigail, I beg a thousand pardons for having written. No consideration in the world would have induced me to do so, had I thought you would put yourself to the inconvenience—”
    “Don’t be silly.” Abigail fetched her basket from the table and held it out to him; his pale face flushed slightly with pleasure when he saw what it contained. He moved the table closer to the hearth, which was cold, the afternoon being far too fine to need a fire. “And tell me, please,” she went on, “what troubling events befell you and why you think John had anything to do with them?”
    “That’s just it, Aunt Abigail.” Horace made a move toward the door as if he would have closed it, then hesitated—no doubt recalling the extreme strictures the College set upon its students having women in their rooms—and settled himself awkwardly in the chair opposite her. “I think Uncle John had something to do with it because Mrs. Lake had a letter of introduction from him—and from Uncle Mercer in Connecticut—recommending her in the highest terms. But I suspect that she poisoned me—and I very much fear that she will try to do so again.”
    “Good Heavens, why?”
    The boy shook his head helplessly. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Two

    John Adams
    Boston
     
    16 April 1774
    My dear Horace,
     
    Let this serve as an introduction to Mrs. Lake, a woman of the highest probity, and as urging that you oblige her in her researches. She is a member in good standing in the Brattle Street Congregation, and in that capacity, I have known her for many years, and can vouch for both her character and her intentions.
     
    Yrs obt’ly,
John Adams
    “This is nothing like Mr. Adams’s hand.” Abigail set the letter down among the cocoa cups. “And I can assure you at once that there is no Mrs. Lake in the Brattle Street Congregation.”
    Silently, Horace held out the other letter.
    It purported to be from Justice Mercer Euston—Abigail identified him as a connection on the other side of the Thaxter family and well-known across the border in Connecticut—but even to her inexperienced eye, the smudgy, spidery handwriting looked suspiciously similar. The paper, so far as she could tell, was identical.
    “And who,” asked Abigail, “is Mrs. Lake?”
    “That’s just it.” Horace propped his thick-lensed spectacles more firmly onto the bridge of his nose. “I have no idea. We seem to be moving per nocte ad tenebris , unless she is some relation to Henry Morgan . . .”
    “Henry Morgan the pirate?” Abigail experienced the momentary sensation that she and her nephew were not engaged in the