InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Listening to the news! Again?"

Peggy had had a good cry and a little firewhisky with Maggie in the Portree clinic; it had taken her a while to get as much of it as she could out of her system and then to rehydrate after all the tears. As it got closer to dinner time, she started working on her cosmetic charms and straightening out her messy, cried-in robes. She was not the first at the dinner table; that was her father, as announced, and the others were mostly there by the time she arrived, still red-eyed and a bit puffy.

Bethoc hadn't brought any dinner out yet, so Peggy wasn't technically late. And in theory she was supposed to wait until after dinner to tell everyone important things, but this seemed like a good exception.

So Peggy just said what she had to say. "I talked to Georgi Draganov today and he told me he's been disinherited from the Hristovs because he wore the pink at the Montrose-Wigtown match. I told him I'd have him anyhow and if he wasnae man enough to stand up to his parents for that, he wasnae ready to be married. But he doesna want to marry me, so the match is off. That's all."

And then she sat down in her place and waited for the questions.

Graham frowned. “I’m so sorry, honey. It’s certainly his loss.”

Alec looked openly surprised for a moment, he'd worried this was something work related not...Well Georgi seemed so quiet and reasonable that he figured if it didn't work out that it'd be Peggy calling it off because she realized Georgi couldn't be her equal.

For a moment he glanced over to David to try and judge what he thought before looking back to Peggy. He wanted to ask why on earth Georgi hadn't wanted to marry her. It wasn't Peggy that had been disinherited (and if it had been then good riddance to a sort like him). But that felt like the wrong thing to start out with. “I'm sorry Peggy. He only has down to go from you.”

David narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of this revelation. “He’s an idiot for not wanting to marry you.” He said finally, after briefly flickering his gaze to Alec to show how angry he was on their sister’s behalf.

Agnes looked at her daughter and her angry, bewildered sons and sighed. "It's always a risk with these arrangements. At least you found out before you were married. Never mind, Margaret, you'll find someone better suited to you, and one who won't ask you to move to Bulgaria at least. Who knows what their house-elves speak?"

"Bulgarian," said Peggy, and burst into tears again.

Graham stood up and stepped behind his daughter. He put his hand on her shoulder and handed her his pocket-square. “I’m sorry the boy turned out to be so … flighty.” He didn’t look happy. “I wonder if he’ll have the balls to tell me himself.”

Peggy dabbed ineffectively at her eyes. "He will. I told him I wanted to talk to you first."

While their father comforted Peggy, under the table Alec gave his brother a nudge with his foot and a glance. They'd see if something should be done about Georgi if Peggy wanted it. Pending the reason behind this and how badly she took the breakup once the initial hurt was gone.

The younger nodded implicitly, and reached a hand out to Peggy if she wanted that comfort. “We love you, Peggy,” David reminded her quietly, but firmly.

Peggy took David's hand with her free one and continued her efforts to stop crying. At least now it was just tears and not sobs, which had been awful but at least nobody but Maggie had really seen it. "Oh, David, I'm glad someone does."

"Margaret Catriona!," said Agnes, each syllable, "just because this … young rapscallion chose to … toy with your affections, does not mean that you are any less beloved than you have always been. While we all understand the need for a good cry, he was not worthy to become an Urquhart."

Graham nodded, then realized that Peggy couldn't see it while he stood behind her. He let her lean against him, and hoped it was comforting. "Your mother is right, my brave one, he's the loser here. The rest of us, well, at least we don't have to pretend we enjoy the cultural highlights of Plovdiv."

Normally Alec would smile at his mother's outburst but the whole topic wasn't much for smiling. "I'm sure there wasn't much to see there anyway. And you said you wanted someone who was your equal, remember? Or at least close to. Well...he wasn't." Alec gave Peggy a sympathetic look, at least now he could say what his initial impression of Georgi was. Nice, polite, but not even close to Peggy's equal. As far as he was concerned his sister would've been able to walk all over Georgi and that wasn't what she had said she wanted.

David nodded vigorously in agreement with Alec. “You deserve better than him.” Georgi couldn’t even hold a candle to their sister, quite frankly. And if he thought he could find a better wife than Peggy, he was much too stupid to marry into their family, anyway.

Peggy's first instinct was to defend Georgi, even now, but ... she didn't have to. And the truth was, she was rethinking the whole thing already. Peggy liked Nadezhda, who was sharp and funny, and both of Georgi's sisters, but for all that Georgi was sweet, they weren't entirely wrong. If Peggy ran fast, there were ways in which Georgi simply couldn't keep up with her. (If Nadezhda had been a lad, though, that would have been another issue altogether.)

She blew her nose in her father's pocket square and bit the inside of her cheek so she'd stop crying. "Maybe I do," she said, looking at David and then Alec, and dabbing a little more moisture from around her eyes.

That was good enough for Agnes. "Of course you do. And this isn't the eighteenth century--a witch with a successful career, like you and I have, can wait for the right man to come along."

Graham squeezed Peggy's shoulder. "Worked for me. I'd've been pretty sad if your mother hadn't been choosy."

Agnes smiled at Graham. "You could have been sadder if I'd done what Peggy should do, and been choosier."