“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.