A Most Personal Property (Ganymede Quartet Book 1) Read Free

to manage more than Henry and his much-younger sister Cora; Henry, therefore, would be expected to make up the difference.
    Henry already fell short of the plan. He was a terrible student, distinguishing himself only through his exceptional shortcomings, and he did not hold out hopes that his college record would be any different. Although the Blackwells were wealthy enough that Henry never need hold a job, Father believed in the value of work and would not let Henry shirk. Henry couldn’t begin to guess where his aptitudes might lie, but he didn’t suppose it mattered; he would be given employment commensurate with his meager abilities. As for the wife, he simply did not want one at all, but there was no possibility he’d be allowed to remain a bachelor.
    For while it was true Father could be extravagant and generous, he expected obedience in return, and Henry could not see a way to alter the course of his own life in any positive way. He was Father’s only legitimate son and Father considered him his property, to mold and shape as he desired. Henry would not be allowed to indulge his fancies. He would never run away to ride on a riverboat, or join the circus. He wasn’t going to be a soldier or sea captain or brave adventurer. Henry wouldn’t be allowed to be whimsical or dilettantish.
    But how would Henry get anywhere in life without a slave of his own? A man of their class without a companion might as well be no gentleman at all. Would Father really deny him something so necessary for his future success?
    Henry fretted until Billy knocked at the door, coming to dress him for dinner. He was changed from his grey suit into his dinner clothes without giving the process much thought, raising his arms and lifting his feet at appropriate times. This time tomorrow, he should be being dressed by a boy his own age, a slave he’d chosen for himself, but it seemed almost certain now that this wasn’t going to happen. He went down to dinner in a funk, and when he sat down, Father told him to stop moping.
    Father sat at the head of the table with Henry at his right hand and Mother at his left. There was space for twenty at the table, and the cavernous room was always chilly. Although the Blackwells sat bunched together at one end of the long mahogany table, there was little conviviality in their gatherings.
    Henry had heard enough gossip to understand that his parents’ match was a financial arrangement, not an affair of the heart. They were very unalike, in looks as well as personality. Hiram Blackwell was an intimidating figure. In addition to his imposing girth, he was nearly six-and-a-half feet tall and towered over nearly everyone. He was a shrewd man, unsentimental and gruff, and he did not bother to hide his scorn for those things which displeased him. He had come up from nothing and made a staggering fortune, but he had no people, no traditions of any kind.
    In contrast to Henry’s rough-hewn father, Louisa Wilton Blackwell was petite and olive-skinned with glossy black hair, the Wiltons’ Native blood strongly in evidence, and she was from a good family, an old family, though a family without money. Indeed, she had been a great beauty, and there were still vestiges of that in her fine-boned face, but half a lifetime of vaguely-defined maladies had taken their toll. Mother was quite reliant on daunting quantities of laudanum to get through her days, and this dependency was something that was not discussed.
    Tonight, Mother was in one of her moods, distant and fragile, speaking in a whisper and only to her companion, Pearl. Father paid no further attention to Henry during the meal, and none to his wife, either. He did speak to Timothy, who took dictation in a notebook while Father cut his meat. Randolph the butler and Billy served the food in silence. Henry thought that the dining room, with its crystal sconces and chandeliers and ornately-figured wallpaper, should not have seemed as dismal as the Blackwells made