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No kidding. My brother was six years younger than me and currently on a yacht off the coast of Mykonos, partying it up with all the other future Earls and Dukes who had too much time and money on their hands, while I was here, trying to make something of my life.
“I know you’d be happier with a simpler life, Gabi.” Aunt Cat closed her paper and stood up. “And I think Henry realises it, too. Perhaps you should humour him for a little while—go along with his matchmaking attempts until either he or you find someone you deem suitable to pursue a relationship with.” She paused in the doorway. “After all, my love, he just wants the best for you.”
“I know,” I said softly.
And I did know that.
The problem was nobody cared about what I thought was best for me.
***
Dear Lady Love,
My boyfriend of six years is drifting away from me. I just found out I’m pregnant, and our big problem is that we don’t communicate, and I’m afraid to have that conversation in case he breaks up with me. I took the quiz and my love language is acts of service, which makes sense because I find I like it when he does the little things, but he doesn’t do them as much anymore. He won’t take the quiz because he thinks it’s stupid, but I think his language is words of affirmation. How can I use these to fix our relationship?
Yours sincerely,
K from Norfolk
Okay, wow. That was a loaded one.
I blew out a breath, cracked one of my knuckles, and hit the button to respond to her.
Dear K from Norfolk,
The first thing you need to do is sit down with your boyfriend and tell him you’re pregnant. You can’t keep that a secret from him, even if you’re afraid he no longer wants to be in a relationship with you. If he does break up with you, it isn’t the end of the world.
If you have that conversation and you continue your relationship, it’s important to tell him how you feel. That you like it when he does little things for you just because, and if you believe his love language is words of affirmation, you should work on making sure you fulfil his needs, too. Sometimes, just saying, “Oh, that cup of tea was amazing!” can make a big difference to someone who needs to feel like they’re doing a good job.
But yes, have that all important conversation.
Good luck and congratulations on the baby!
Lady Love
I hit publish on my response and sat back. That was the fifth one I’d answered today, and I was just about done with the internet. After checking my personal emails, I exited out of my secret blog and cleared the Internet history.
It was a habit I’d gotten into. Aunt Cat looked up some questionable things every now and then, and my father liked to make sure she wasn’t looking up anything illegal.
Well, anything too illegal, that was.
I didn’t want my family knowing what I was doing. I was sure nobody had any idea who Lady Love even was, but my aunt was a wealth of knowledge of random things, and my father certainly wouldn’t be too impressed with what I was doing.
He really was a traditionalist, and he would not believe that the daughter of a duke had any business giving relationship advice on the Internet.
Especially a single one.
I slid my laptop under my bed and got changed. The sun was now shining, and I wanted to go outside to the gardens. I doubted anything had changed since I was out there yesterday morning, but I was never happier than I was when I was among the plants.
Even if Miles wouldn’t let me in his beloved greenhouse.
I changed into a dress and grabbed a sunhat and glasses and walked through the house.
Arrowwood Estate was the ancestral home of my family and the dukedom that came with it. My father was the current Duke of Bath, and we were about thirty minutes from the city itself. I only ever really ventured in for my qualification for when I needed to do some in-person learning or testing.
The proximity to the tourist hotspot meant we were always busy.
It was no bad thing—an estate the size of ours cost a lot of money to upkeep. My father and grandfather had done what they could to modernise the manor house while keeping it true to itself and its history, but there was only so much they could do.
My grandfather had invested a lot of money into the gardens. About one hundred acres of the three hundred we owned were open to the public, and they were all immaculately presented. We had everything from perfectly manicured box bushes to pruned fruit trees and expansive flower gardens, including a huge orangery that had a giant koi pond.
