A Wicked Way to Burn Read Online Free PDF Page B

sometimes made him laugh out loud. Besides that, she listened well. And his neighbor had often helped him weather his frequent melancholia. She made him feel necessary … as her steadfast supporter, and as a good companion. He knew this to be a rare thing for a man whose quick, passionate nature had lost him nearly as many friends as he had ever claimed.
    Not that he minded having few friends. He was, after all, respected. And as long as there were new ideas to explore, experiments to be conducted and studied, seeds to plant and stars to ponder, who could be bothered with courting admiration? Let others fear loneliness. The cup offered up by the physical world was filled to overflowing.
    Energized by a new idea, Longfellow picked up the candlestick in front of him, and strode away from the fire toward a gold-framed mirror that graced one side of the simply appointed room. As he did so, he felt the pleasant flap of the long linen trousers he’d recently affected (taking the style of certain Italian peasants), which he wore outside his boots to further confound custom. The trousers were cool and comfortable, and they didn’t constrain him at the joints like common knee breeches, with buttons that bit into you when you sat. They also concealed lower legs he found quite adequate for the most part, if they did not bulge enough to meet fashionable standards.
    Lighting two more wax tapers that stood in brass-backed sconces on either side of the Venetian mirror, he peered at his own image. It was less beautiful than the one he had been contemplating on the wall, but it had the advantage of being alive. By the light of candles and fire, the mirror revealed a pliant, if solemn, face. It could have been a trifle underfed, but it had full lips, and now it experimented with apleasant smile—nothing like the pinched, aristocratic sneer so popular in his former home by the Bay. Longfellow saw that false token all around him when he rode in to Boston to visit. It was enough to make a parson growl.
    Further study brought to light the presence of new gray hairs among the dark mass that fell down his back—tied, but neither pomaded nor powdered. Still thick, by God, for a man who could no longer call himself young. And the eyes were certainly distinctive—the rich color of hazelnut shells. It was fortunate, he told himself, he was not a vain man by nature.
    Moving away, Longfellow tapped the glass barometer that hung on the wall. For the moment, it held steady … steadier, he thought ruefully, than he felt himself. Would the evening
never
end?
    He knew he had become dangerously mercurial again. Right now, he had the urge to argue about something—anything. Perhaps Locke, or Rousseau, or some other misleading and overblown fool. Cicero would take whatever side was left in an argument, and keep it up until they were both worn out with it, run down like clocks and ready for sleep. But Cicero was late returning home.
    Longfellow sat at the pianoforte for a while, picking out a tune on the cool ivory keys, considering fate’s rude manners. In his father’s time, in Boston, Cicero had been far more than an adequate servant—in fact, he had nearly run his father’s city house … especially after Richard’s mother had died. He had also assisted the members of the family he’d “adopted” in delicate matters, often requiring a certain amount of finesse. At Jason Longfellow’s death, his will had ended the black man’s bondage, providing him with the legally required funds to remain free. But Cicero had agreed to stay in service to Richard Longfellow (who else, he asked, would have the job?) and had moved with him when theaging young man, in love, purchased the house next to the Howards four years before.
    Tonight, Cicero was down at the taproom of the Bracebridge Inn, imbibing news with his wine. Like his Roman namesake, he enjoyed society even while he frequently objected to it, and it to him. Since he was no longer a slave, he had a