An Interracial Gay Erotic Romance.
Matt Henderson arrives at university a naive nineteen-year-old from a small farm, who knows little about the world beyond his rural Virginia home. But he does know that he likes, or maybe even loves: big black men. And he also loves architecture and beautiful old buildings. The accidental deaths of his parents in a car accident brings Matt back from his first year at university to his small family farm in southwestern Virginia, where he is comforted, helped, and bedded by his hunky black neighbor, Dashad. Dashad insists that Matt return to his architectural studies at the University of Virginia, where he is seduced and introduced to a life of luxury by Virginia aristocrat playboy, Perry Fitzhugh, who soon whisks Matt off to the Fitzhugh estate, Ravensworth, for a Thanksgiving frolic of hunt parties and a surprise bedding by Perry’s father, William Henry.
The first hunt of the season also leads to a rough ride on horseback that unexpectedly takes Matt to the next estate, Brambleton, the unique Italianate style of which has caught Matt’s interest, especially in that its south wing is burned out and in need of restoration. He also comes under the sway and obsession of Brambleton’s owner, Philadelphia judge Archibald Atherton. Not so slowly Matt increasingly sells out to the attraction of wealth and position—and most important, the obsession to possess and restore Brambleton.
In a fast rags-to-riches and part way back again ride, his two obsessions come together as he uses men—and is used by them in turn—in his journey to possess Brambleton and obtain sexual fulfillment.
But in the end will Matt find love is more important?
Matt’s tongue was hanging out even before they entered Loudon County in Perry’s Mustang, as well-groomed estate after large country mansion rolled by in gorgeous rolling countryside along the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As an architecture student, he was in heaven. He was wearing a new form-fitting shirt and slacks from Joseph A. Banks and the finest pair of leather loafers he’d ever owned, and two new Samsonite suitcases containing all new clothes were in the trunk of the car—all bought by Perry. All symbols that Perry owned his ass.
He was wearing just enough of Gaultier’s Le Male fragrance for Perry to say that he smelled perfect and that it was exactly right for him, and a cashmere sweater was draped over his back with the arms in a twist in front of his shirt as he’d seen in old movies of Rock Hudson types and that Perry said had yet to go out of style in the hunt country.
Perry was wearing a white designer T-shirt and faded jeans with holes in the knees, but the swarthy bad-boy look became him as much as the preppy look showed off Matt’s blond all-American look.
As they got closer to Leesburg, Perry began rattling off the names of the families owning the estates they were passing and including one or more catty tidbit about the skeletons in their closets.
“Near Ravensworth now,” he said at length.
“Ravensworth?”
“The name of the ancestral home in Fairfax County, now the location of just another expensive subdivision just inside the Beltway. The original William Henry Fitzhugh’s plantation. The name was transferred out to our new digs—if the mid eighteenth century can be considered new. Ravensworth is the name of the family dump.”
“You said the ‘original’ William Henry Fitzhugh?”
“Yes. All of the Fitzhugh heirs are named William Henry. The lord of the manor we’re going to is William Henry, although everyone he’s actually speaking to calls him Hal.”
Ahh, Matt thought. New information. So Perry isn’t the heir of the estate. That must mean he has at least one brother—older, most likely.
He planned to worry that a bit more—he’d thought he was rubbing shoulders with the heir to the estate and, over the past several weeks, as he had sunk lower and lower into enjoying the status and good life that Perry was bringing him to, it was meaning more to Matt that he was moving up in the world like a rocket. But as he was picking at this thought, his attention was drawn to an imposing mansion atop a hill on a meticulously manicured estate that was unlike any of the other southern colonial or rock-faced mansions they had been passing. He readily saw that it was in an Italianate style that had only started to come into style when the Civil War choked off such expensive undertakings. There was a massive square center portion, with two elegant wings, the whole covered in ivy. It was only as they came closer to it, however, that Matt saw that the southern wing was merely a shell—that at some time it had been burnt out and the roof on that side was half caved in.
“Brambleton,” Perry said as they came even with the southern set of front gates, an ornate iron double-gate flanked by square plaster pillars with lions on top. A similar gate was on the north side. From each, an oak-lined drive curved up the slope of the hill to the sides of the mansion on the top.
