More Heyer Fanfiction: Aubrey & Oswald

Oswald behaves rather like Scott Baio

on Love Boat, who acts like Igor

when embarrassed.

As I mention elsewhere, I find it easiest to create Heyer fan-fiction if I keep the rules of a social order in mind. I also find it easier if I try to stick to the rules/plot of the original text. 

With Venetia, I kept Venetia and Dameral, one of my favorite couples in Heyer's fiction, as they are.

For a male/male relationship, I turned instead to Oswald. Oswald is one of Heyer's most delightful characters. A young man from a neighboring estate to Venetia and Aubrey's, he has convinced himself that he is some kind of Bryonic hero and pursues Venetia in that way...until a true Bryonic male, Dameral, shows up in the area. Oswald immediately recognizes that in terms of broodiness and a dark past, he is seriously out-classed, mostly because he has the most prosaic, ordinary, non-dark past of any male of Venetia's acquaintance. 

Edward Yardley, the pompous guy who also pursues Venetia, tries to scold Oswald. But Venetia is more understanding.

In my fan-fiction, Oswald is actually interested in caustic, scholarly Aubrey, Venetia's brother However, Oswald's family's estate is one of the few that has passed through a bloodline (rather than through adoption). He pursues Venetia, and does so badly, because he is doesn't know what else to do. When his parents decide he is making a pest of himself and send him away, he goes to see Aubrey and confesses his feelings. 

Aubrey is too self-protective to take Oswald seriously since he knows what Oswald's parents expect from him.

However, when Venetia marries Dameral, Edward ends up marrying one of Oswald's sisters. It turns out, Oswald's genial father doesn't much like Edward either. Oswald's father would rather work with rakish Damerel and competent, straight-forward Venetia than condescending Edward. If Aubrey and Oswald marry, then Venetia can stand as "doyenne" to the estate, and one of her and Damerel's clever sons could inherit after Oswald. 

Consequently, the estate passes from a bloodline inheritance to an adoption inheritance. 

Estate matters settled, Oswald goes to Greece to find Aubrey, who is carrying out his beloved research. After they marry, they spend 1/2 a year in Undershaw and 1/2 a year abroad. 

What amuses me about my solution is that in Heyer's Venetia, Venetia and Dameral do in fact remain well-liked by the locals, despite Edward's tut-tutting. My solution takes advantage of the book's wrap-up.