Katrina's Reaction
Part 1
By: Snow White
The
letter floated to a stop as it landed on the coffee table in front of
her, Katrina sat in shock...
Lexie and Archie? The two names
pulsated at her mind like a drum, pulling at the drawstrings of her
heart.
Katrina stood, walked to the kitchen cupboard, turned and
walked back. Then shaking her head decidedly walked back up to the
cupboard and pulled out the nearest bottle of alcohol.
They were
engaged. That's what the letter had said. Engaged to be married!
Archie had asked Lexie to marry him, to be his wife, to be the Lady
of Glenbogle... How could that be? They couldn't have been together
more than a year, and yet he felt so compelled by love that he would
ask her the most important question of his life?
Last time she
had been at Glenbogle Lexie had been the housekeeper/ cook, true, she
had been Archie's best friend but...but....
Katrina thought
about herself and Archie-
Half the time that they had been
together they couldn't communicate, even just to get him to ask her
out had been a trial that had lasted a year. Now here he was with
another woman, who he hadn't even been with for a year- and he was
asking her to marry him?!
How long had it taken for Archie and her
to finally come to some sort of conclusion about what they felt about
each other? And yet here he was willing to settle down and live
forever with Lexie in such a short period.
Why was it different?
What did he feel for Lexie that he hadn't felt for her? Would he
have ever asked her to be his wife? Had he ever loved her? He'd
never really said he had, he told her he fancied her as such, called
her sweetheart and other pet names, but had never actually mentioned
the 'L' word.
This grated on her now, more then it ever had
before. She had just assumed that it was part of their communication
problems, she knew it generally took quite a bit to get a man to say,
"I love you" and actually mean it. Yet with Lexie he was throwing
around the word like it was some huge revelation.
And what did
Lexie have? Nothing. She wasn't rich, she didn't have a prominent
blood line or a well-known family, she worked for him. She had
nothing to tempt a Laird to marry her except for her personality and
beauty.
He had to love her to be willing to marry her, his father
would not approve, and neither would a lot of his family. He was the
son and heir to Glenbogle Estate, he would have had to fight to marry
Lexie from word go.
This couldn't have been something that he
had just decided to do on a whim. A lot of thought and consternation
would have had to be involved....which made the whole thing even
worse.
And Hector dead? How could that be, and in such a tragic
way. She had liked Hector in a funny kind of way; Glenbogle certainly
wouldn't be the same without him. Poor Molly, how would she be
coping? And Archie. Archie. The name still had meaning for her, too
much meaning. Why had she ever left him? Ever given him the chance to
fall for someone else.
'It was true what they said', Katrina
thought sullenly, as the alcohol she was downing began to take
effect, 'You could never go home again.'