Love Language

Table of Contents

Title Page

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE – MILES

CHAPTER TEN – GABRIELLA

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN – MILES

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – GABRIELLA

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – MILES

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – GABRIELLA

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE – GABRIELLA

THE END

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BOOKS BY EMMA HART

LOVE LANGUAGE

The Aristocrat Diaries

EMMA HART

Copyright © Emma Hart, 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design by Emma Hart

Editing by Karin Enders

CHAPTER ONE

“Did you hear that the police found a dead body in the bushes by the clock on the town square?”

I jerked my head around to look at Aunt Cat. “Come again?”

“You’re spilling the milk, dear.” She sashayed into the kitchen with her floral skirt twirling about her lower legs.

Oh, balls. So I was.

I quickly righted the milk bottle and put the top back on before I made any more of a mess. I was almost entirely sure that the new housekeeper didn’t like me, and I was desperately trying to get on her good side, so I plucked a cloth from the Belfast sink, ran it under the tap, and wiped up my mess.

“Isn’t that Emily’s job?” Aunt Cat asked, peering over the top of her newspaper from the large kitchen island.

“Yes, but I don’t think she likes me, and she has a radar for when I make a mess.”

“I can fire her if she doesn’t like you.”

“Me being so messy I piss off the staff doesn’t give you grounds to fire them,” I reminded her, rinsing the milk from the dishcloth. “It’s just milk. It’s no big deal. Talk to me about this dead body. Who is it?”

“We don’t know. The police cordoned the area off rather early.” She wrinkled her face up as her eyes scanned the paper.

“You seem disgruntled.”

“Of course I’m disgruntled, Gabriella. I want to know who was stabbed and left to bleed out over the tulips.”

I held up my hand and closed my eyes. Normally, I shared my aunt’s love of murder and the macabre, but I hadn’t had my breakfast yet and I’d had one too many glasses of wine at my friend’s dinner party last night.

“Can I have my breakfast before we get into the details, please?” I put my bowl on the island countertop and opened the drawer for a spoon so I could eat my cereal.

“I must say that I agree.” Our butler, Arthur Fredericks, walked into the kitchen with a stack of newspapers under his arm. “It’s far too early for your morbidity, milady.”

“Nonsense,” Aunt Cat mused. “It’s never too early for murder. Is there tea in that pot, Gabriella?”

“Yes. Would you like a cup?”

“I would.”

“I’ll handle that.” Arthur set the newspapers down on the table like he did every morning in preparation for my father’s morning cup of tea. “You have your breakfast, Lady Gabriella.”

“Yeeees,” my aunt said slowly. “You were out quite late last night at the Holmes’, weren’t you?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Helena insisted on post-dinner drinks. I was outvoted.”

“Hmm.” She watched Arthur as he retrieved a mug from the cupboard and picked up the teapot. “I wonder about Helena. She can put her liquor away, can’t she?”

I rolled my eyes. “No more than any other twenty-something aristocrat in the public eye.”

“So, you.”

“Please,” I replied, making sure the slice of banana was perfectly situated for me to scoop it up my Weetabix. “You know I avoid the media. There are enough party-loving upper-class people they can rip to shreds in their opinion pieces without me offering myself up for their amusement.”

Besides, I preferred to be in the garden, much to my father’s frustration.

“Agreed. Best not to rile them. Look at Amelia Hughes. Her wedding in Sicily to that nice Italian bloke was essentially sponsored by a designer and the media did not like that.” Aunt Cat took her tea from Arthur with a quiet thank you and turned her attention to her newspaper. “Very tacky, flashing those designer labels about the place.” She sniffed and flipped her page. “Back in my day—”

“Good morning!” My father strolled into the kitchen while tying the belt on his dressing gown. “Oh, Arthur, excellent timing.”

“Of course, my lord.” Arthur bowed his head. “I’ll get you your tea.”

“Thank you. What’s in the news today?”

“Please don’t ask,” I muttered.

“Dead body in the town square,” my aunt replied, nonplussed. “Bled out all over the tulips. Just as well, if you ask me. It’s the end of their season and they were looking a little miserable, so all that blood appears to have livened the square up a bit.”

Arthur coughed.

“And there goes my breakfast.” I abandoned my morning Weetabix and disposed of it.

Daddy glanced at me. “Really? Who died?”

“Nobody knows,” my aunt replied. “Those bloody police taped off the area and nobody can get near.”

“That is their job, Catherine.”

“I don’t care. I want to know who was stupid enough to get themselves stabbed.”

I paused.

Daddy eyed her. “This is why you’re not allowed to talk to the media, Catherine.”

“I don’t want to talk to the media, Henry. I want to look after my goats without those heathens wondering if Queen Victoria or Prince Albert have escaped to the public gardens again.”

He sighed as he spooned sugar into the cup of tea Arthur had just set down in front of him. “Perhaps, if Victoria and Albert stopped breaking into the public gardens and terrorising the visitors, nobody would have to wonder.”

“It’s not my fault the fence doesn’t hold.”

Actually, it was, but I wasn’t getting involved in this argument. Not again. Last time, she’d ignored me for a week for pointing out that she was legally required to keep the goats secure.

“It is, and you know it is,” Daddy replied. “Why don’t you ask Miles to reinforce it?”

“That whippersnapper? What does he know about gardens?”

He cast his gaze towards Arthur. “Thank you, Arthur. I won’t subject you my sister’s ramblings any longer this morning. Will you prepare my office for my meeting this morning?”

With the assurance he would, Arthur bowed once again and silently disappeared.

“A lot. He’s an extremely qualified gardener, and exceptionally talented. You know he worked at Kew Gardens for five years.”

“He’s also about ten.”

“Thirty,” I muttered.

“What?” Aunt Cat looked at me, eyes sparkling.

I was pretty sure she knew I had the hots for the gardener. “He’s thirty,” I replied.

Daddy frowned. “How do you know that?”

Here we go. “Well, see, there’s this thing that human beings do when more than one are gathered together. It’s called talk.”

“Hardy-har-har. Very funny.”

“You asked.”

He cradled his cup of tea. “What are you doing today?”

I shrugged. “I was going to eat breakfast, but Aunt Cat put that idea to bed with her gruesome gossip.”

She raised her teacup to me. “You are welcome.”

“I wasn’t thanking you,” I pointed out. “Otherwise, I don’t have plans. The weather is nice so I might go out and wander about the garden for a while.”

“How was the dinner party last night?” Daddy asked.

That was what he said.

It wasn’t what he wanted to know.

He wanted to know if any of the single, eligible men that had been there had caught my eye.

“Terribly boring,” I replied without batting an eyelid. “Helena’s cousin only spoke about his ex-girlfriend who apparently traded down even though she’s now engaged to an Italian billionaire. Louis Fitzgerald kept holding conversations with my breasts, and Howard Billings wouldn’t stop discussing his new business deal which apparently will net him seven figures and he wanted us all to remember that. All very brash and inappropriate.”

Daddy shook his head. “Where have all the gentlemen gone?”

“They started watching porn,” Aunt Cat said, flipping the page of her newspaper. “And forgot that women only want a freak between the sheets. They want a gentleman on the streets.”

He blinked at her as I fought back a laugh. I mean, she wasn’t wrong, was she?

“Speaking of brash and inappropriate,” he said slowly before turning his attention back to me. “I’m going to Windsor this afternoon to help with preparations for the state banquet in two weeks. I’ll be meeting with the Duke of Westminster and—”

“Nope.”

“Gabriella, you—”

“I’m twenty-seven, not seventy-seven,” I reminded him. “I know you want me to meet someone and get married, but I don’t want to right now.”

“All the eligible young men that are suitable for you will be taken soon,” he said with a pointed look.

“I didn’t realise I was living in Tudor England.” I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “I went out with Steven in college, and it didn’t work out. I can’t imagine it would be any different now.”

“Well, you have an outstanding invitation to the state banquet, and he will be there. It won’t hurt you to attend and mingle, even if you aren’t interested in Steven.” Daddy finished his tea and set the cup next to the sink. “Think about it.”

He left the kitchen on that note. Aunt Cat flipped the page of her paper once more, and I sighed, dropping my head so I was looking at the floor.

“I assume you still haven’t told him you’ve signed up for that horticultural course,” she said without looking up.

“No, I haven’t.”

“You know you’re going to have to tell him. There are only so many times you’ll get away with it before he realises you’re going to the local college. Especially when the course brings you to our own gardens for education.”

I swallowed. I knew she was right. I was keeping two huge secrets from my father—and one even from her—and I was going to have to come clean. “He’s not going to be happy about it. You know as well as I do that he’s stuck in the stone age.”

“He’s traditional.” Aunt Cat finally put down her paper and peered at me over the top of her glasses. “He just wants you to be looked after, Gabi, and in his mind that means you marrying well.”

“I wish he’d realise I can look after myself. Besides, it’s not like I’ll inherit absolutely nothing.”

“No,” she admitted. “Just as me and Elizabeth didn’t when your grandfather died. Of course, Elizabeth had already married into another aristocratic family, but like this estate went to your father, it will go to your brother. The rules are archaic and ridiculous if you ask me, but it’s how things are done.”

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.