for disentombs; Arranged Marriage AU

[tenebrarius]

Adam had met the Gansey heir once before. He wasn't even sure he was remembering the right young man. Weren't they all the same? Generic good looks and that lazy confidence, the certainty that the world was his for the taking. Infuriatingly WASPy. The perfect golden son. Everything Adam wished he was.

Adam waited in his family's home, in the expensive and overcrowded parlor. His father liked to make expensive purchases but was not constrained by taste. A massive moose head dominated one wall in a room that was too small for it. Adam hated it.

In the ostentatiously ugly room, Adam was the only thing that was understated. He was grateful for the control he held over his own wardrobe. His father wanted him to look presentable, to keep up the facade that they were a respectable family. It was one tiny area of Adam's life where he had control. In his dove-gray suit, impeccably kept, Adam looked handsome and elegant. He looked something like the respected heir he was supposed to be.

It was all a lie, but this was about appearances.

He was being pushed into this marriage. His father said that the Gansey heir--what was his name? Richard?--had expressed some interest or approval of Adam. And so his father had reached out and offered an alliance--the Gansey name and hereditary titles in alliance with the powerful new money and the profitable corporation that had been built on the basis of Adam's discoveries.

He'd been so blind, and it still stung. He'd had no idea that his father was so conniving, or even clever enough to realize the value of Adam's research. Adam had been young--just fifteen--and he hadn't yet begun to think about the practical applications and the financial benefits of what he'd learned. He wished now that he had. He wished he'd had the prescience to realize what his father was doing, to better hide his research, to have reserved some proof that the work was his.

Instead, he'd kept his mouth shut. Who would believe that a quiet fifteen-year-old had been responsible for the discoveries that had launched a major corporation?

In a few short years, the family had become exorbitantly wealthy. Adam was nineteen now, still under the legal control of his father, and the wedding was scheduled for just before Adam's twentieth birthday, just before he could effect an escape.

He could refuse or obstruct the wedding, of course. These things required his consent, even though it was really his father's legal consent that mattered. It was just a question of whether his new role as some spoiled rich boy's trophy consort would be better than remaining in his father's house. That was almost certain, but Adam needed to be sure. If he refused, the consequences from his father would be severe. He might even kill Adam this time.

So Adam waited, watching the door, for his brief private meeting with his future spouse. He'd been told that the Ganseys had requested it. Everything else had been arranged in writing between their parents.