The Prince I Love to Hate: A Steamy Romantic Comedy (The Heir Affair Book 1)

by Iris Morland

  I wandered for a while longer, coming to a hallway I hadn’t been down. As I walked, I saw that a door was open, and I peered inside to see a library. The moon was the only light, although more lights turned on as I began to wander the aisles.

  Had my grandda been a big reader? I wondered. One aisle had books that were all written in Irish. I pulled one out, curious, but my Irish was rudimentary at best, and I could hardly read a heavy tome that seemed to be about Ireland’s flora and fauna.

  Other aisles had books in English, most of which seemed to be nonfiction: natural history of Ireland, Catholic treatises, and a variety of Bibles were all collected together. I did finally find a section of fiction, most of the authors being Irish—James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde were all there.

  I pulled out a collection of Yeats’ poems. I flipped it open to find an inscription at the front in Irish that I was able to translate: to my beloved Maire, Sean. I knew that Maire was the Irish version of Mary.

  My heart started pounding. It felt like kismet, coming upon this book dedicated to my grandmother after that strange conversation I’d had with Mrs. Walsh.

  I flipped through the pages, and my heart nearly fell to my toes when a note fluttered to the floor. I grabbed it, noting that edges were yellow with age. I carefully unfolded it after I’d set the book down on a nearby table.

  I squinted at the handwriting. It was in Irish, I realized, so I could only make out a few words that I remembered learning as a child. Liam could still speak Irish; he’d lived here in Ireland until he was twenty-three. Whereas I’d left when I was only six and he’d placed me in the care of my uncle Henry and aunt Siobhan, Siobhan being our mother’s younger sister. Siobhan had never learned Irish, and I’ll admit, I hadn’t had much discipline to take classes when I was younger.

  Now I desperately wished I’d learned the language. The letter was from my grandmother Mary to Sean, dated over seventy years ago.

  I carefully folded the letter up again and placed it back inside the book. I would take a photo of it and send it to Liam to see if he could read it and translate it for me. I had no idea how good his reading skills in Irish were these days. For all I knew, he could only speak it and understand it orally.

  I could always try to translate it myself, I reasoned. I mean, did I really want Liam involved? He might not be all that gung-ho about a letter written to our grandda, unless the contents were basically the Irish version of “go fuck yourself.”

  Well, Google Translate could at least give me the gist of it, I told myself.

  Snagging the book, I was about to go back to my room when I heard a noise to my left. I hadn’t realized that there was a smaller wooden door, partially open, that led to another part of the library.

  I heard another noise, and my heart started pounding. I considered just scurrying back to my room, but a part of me felt stupid for being afraid. It could just be a rat or this old house creaking from the wind. It’s probably ghosts, my mind whispered, only half-joking.

  I opened the small door. There were no lights on in the room, although I couldn’t tell if the lights installed were motion-detected like the ones in the hallways. I listened intently, still clutching the books of Yeats’ poems, when I heard a thump.

  I froze. It was the middle of the night. Would any of the workers even be here at this hour? Despite its Downton Abbey feel, the estate didn’t actually house the people who worked here, at least according to the butler Roger, whose name I’d finally learned today. He’d told me that everyone returned home by the end of the day like any other employee going home from the office. The exception being the lone security guard that sat in a tiny office at the front gate, waving people in without so much as looking up from his iPad.

  I waited, listening intently. And then I heard the squeak of door hinges, and then it was complete silence.

  Who knew how long I stood there in the dark, clutching my book, my heart hammering in my throat? When I finally told myself that whoever had been in here was gone, I practically ran back to my room and bolted the door behind me.

  Maybe Roger hadn’t meant that every single person went home? There could still be someone working here. Maybe it had been the security guard. But why would he be in the library? That made no sense.

  Shivering, I got in bed, pulled the covers up to my chin, and failed miserably to fall asleep.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, I considered calling Liam to tell him about the stranger in the library but then thought better of it. My older brother was way overprotective. Knowing him, he’d fly straight here to pummel somebody—anybody.

  Instead, I called Rachel, who’d been my roommate my last two years at Harvard and who now lived in New York City with her girlfriend Maddie. She was one of the most levelheaded people I knew. I could tell her that I’d met five blue aliens and we’d all gotten high on bath salts and eaten our weight in fish and chips, and she wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

  First of all, I gave her the short version of what I’d learned from Mr. McDonnell about my father and the mysterious clock I was now supposed to search for.

  “Do you even know what the clock looks like?” said Rachel.

  I was currently sitting outside, my cup of coffee having already gone cold from the chill wind blowing off of the water. “Um, I have no idea. It’s a clock. I’m assuming it has two hands and numbers on it.”

  Rachel snorted. “Well, duh. But what’s it made of? What century is it from? Is it super fancy and gold-plated, or wooden, or…?”

  “I really doubt it matters.”

  “Well, the more information you have on this clock, the more information you could possibly get to find your da.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip. “That sounds very logical and smart, and I’m annoyed that I didn’t think of it first.”

  “That’s why you’re friends with me.” I could hear the smugness in her voice, the jerk.

  “But why would my da, who’s pretty much hidden himself away from his family for twenty-plus years now, suddenly want his da to know he still exists? Although I guess he failed, considering that my grandda was already dead by the time those papers were mailed.”

  I could hear Rachel moving around in her apartment. “Tuna, stop!” she yelled in the background. “Will you stop chewing on the stupid blinds?” She sighed into the phone. “This cat, I swear.”

  “I think he’s just mad you named him something he loves to eat.”

  “He doesn’t even like tuna! But he’s obsessed with eating popcorn. It makes no sense.”

  I not so subtly forced Rachel back to the subject at hand. “What’s your theory on my da’s motives?”

  “Either he knew your grandfather was already dead and wanted to keep his identity secret or he wanted your grandfather to know he’d gotten that clock,” she said.

  I frowned. “It doesn’t make much sense that my da wanted to conceal his identity by using an identity that’s directly linked to him.”

  “Hey, I never said it was a good idea.”

  We discussed the strange circumstances a while longer, but neither of us really had any idea where I was going to start looking for my da, beyond finding out more information about this clock. There hadn’t been much identifying information about the antique in the paperwork Mr. McDonnell had given me, but admittedly, I’d only skimmed it. Perhaps there was some nugget of information—a brand name? serial number?—that could provide a clue.

  After we’d exhausted the clock conversation, I recounted my strange encounter in the library the night before.

  “Are you sure you heard someone walking around? Maybe it was just the house making noises,” said Rachel.

  “I’m pretty sure creaky old house noises are way different than footsteps.” Irritation crept into my voice. “Besides, I heard a door close.”

  She made a humming noise. “Fair enough. I mean, it could’ve been an intruder, but at the same time, lots of people work there.”

  “You don’
t think it’s weird?”

  “Kinda, but not really?”

  “It was almost three AM!”

  “True, but you were there, too. So someone else had the same idea as you. It sounds like a weird coincidence, that’s all.”

  I sighed. “But wouldn’t they have said something? Why act shady if you aren’t, in fact, doing something shady?”

  I could practically hear Rachel shrugging. An econ major, Rachel preferred to live her life according to logic and numbers. Sometimes it felt like she didn’t care, but I’d known her long enough now to know that she did care. She just showed it differently. When she worked through the logic of your situation, it meant she wanted to find the answer to help you.

  But sometimes I wished she’d be more emotional. Sometimes you just needed somebody to tell you that your feelings were valid, you know? Then again, it wasn’t like Rachel was my therapist. I couldn’t exactly expect her to act like one.

  “Well, I think this means you need to go back there tonight to see if the person returns,” Rachel said finally.

  “I don’t really want to wait up all night.” I snorted at the image. “Sitting in some huge armchair, rifle in hand, waiting for some unsuspecting random to wander in—”

  “Hey, I didn’t say anything about a gun.”

  “And turns it out it was just poor Roger, caught sleepwalking again.”

  Rachel chuckled. “Don’t shoot the butler. Pretty sure you’ll get seven years of bad luck for that one.”

  We chatted for a bit longer, Rachel telling me about the classes she planned to take when she began her grad program in the fall at NYU. Her girlfriend Maddie was in her second year of medical school at Columbia. Yes, both of these women were ridiculously impressive, and, yes, I often felt like a big weird loser compared to them both.

  “Oh, Maddie, say hi to Niamh,” said Rachel.

  “Hi, Niamh,” I heard Maddie call from the background. “Don’t forget to bring back some Guinness for me!”

  “I won’t forget,” I said with a laugh before we said our goodbyes.

  I realized only after I’d hung up that I hadn’t told her about the obnoxious golden-haired man I’d met. It’d only been a few days, yet it felt like that had happened an eternity ago.

  What if the library intruder was Golden Man? my brain asked me. But he was a gardener. There was no reason he’d be lurking around the estate late at night.

  Well, unless he was looking for something. Or he just really wanted to borrow some books and didn’t feel like asking for permission. But why do it in the middle of the night?

  “It probably was a ghost,” I muttered to myself as I made my way back inside, the cold making me shiver. “Or you just imagined it.”

  Even as I said the words aloud, I knew I didn’t believe them. I also knew that the library was probably the best way for me to find more information about this stupid clock, so I’d need to return there tonight. Although not at three AM. I’d go there at a reasonable hour, so at the very least, if someone jumped out of the shadows to attack me, there were still employees around to (hopefully) hear me scream.

  On my way back to my room, I ran into Cara. “Oh, I can take that,” she said, taking my cold mug of coffee. “Do you want another cup? Or I could warm this one up for you.”

  I had to restrain myself from cringing. It felt way too weird to have this girl, who was probably around my age, treat me like I was her mistress. Even though I guess for all intents and purposes, I would be inheriting the money to pay these people’s salaries. That alone made me feel like I’d been doused in cold water.

  “No, I’m okay, thanks.” As Cara was about to continue on her way, I said, “Wait. I have a question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Who all works here at night?”

  She raised a ginger eyebrow. “At night? It’s mostly a skeleton staff until after dinner is served. Mostly everyone goes home around nine PM, except for the security guard.”

  “So there’s no one here at, say, three in the morning?”

  Cara gave me a strange look. “Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”

  I didn’t know why I didn’t tell her about my library encounter right then and there, but something made me keep my mouth shut. Maybe I just didn’t want to deal with a bunch of people questioning me.

  Or maybe I wanted to confront this person myself, instead of he or she scampering off when they caught wind of an investigation.

  Yeah, that’ll end well, Niamh. You’re totally Sherlock Holmes and know exactly what you’re doing.

  “I was just curious,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I was hungry in the middle of the night, but I didn’t want to scare anyone going down to the kitchen.”

  If Cara wasn’t convinced, she was too polite to say it out loud. “May I give you some advice?” she said instead.

  “Of course.”

  Her eyes sparkled now. “If you go into the kitchen at night, don’t leave anything for Mrs. Walsh to find in the morning. She’s a tad territorial.”

  “Now I’m imagining her transforming into the Hulk if she finds a dirty plate on the counter.”

  “You’re not far off.”

  For the rest of the day, I spent it in the library. I brought the letters and documents Mr. McDonnell had already given me, going over them with a fine-tooth comb. I also brought the book of poetry I’d found inscribed to my grandmother and the note enclosed inside.

  The documents about the purchase of the clock listed the clock, signed by Jean-Louis Lambert. After some Googling, I discovered that the clockmaker had been a fairly illustrious one in late eighteenth-century France. Lambert had made clocks for a number of aristocrats, and one had even been commissioned by King Louis XVI for Queen Marie Antoinette.

  But when the Terror swept through the country, Lambert was, unfortunately, decried as a traitor, and he barely escaped with his life. As far as anyone knew, he’d spent the last few years of his life in England before dying penniless.

  So this clock was French and definitely had a lot of history attached to it. But why would my da want it? No one in my family was French, as far as I knew. On my father’s side, everyone was Irish, at least as far as I knew.

  I opened the page in the poetry book to the inscription to my grandmother. Considering I knew nothing about her, my grandmother Mary could’ve been French. She could’ve been Russian, or from the moon, for all I knew about her.

  I touched the lines of ink. It was strange to think of my grandda, always a terrifying figure in my imagination, as a man who’d been in love with his wife.

  Sean Gallagher had been a controlling force in my life and Liam’s even though I’d never met the man. When Liam had married his wife, Mari, on a drunken night in Las Vegas, Liam had tried to make everyone think the marriage was real so as not to invoke the wrath of our grandda. Because if Grandda had found out, he would’ve taken away my inheritance out of a fit of pique—or so Liam thought.

  Please know that I knew nothing about this, and when Liam finally spilled his guts to me, I told him he was a complete idiot. Fortunately for me, I still got the money, and now I was getting this estate. So I guess Liam had been right—not that I’d ever tell my brother that.

  I began to look for more information about Lambert, but despite looking through what felt like hundreds of books, there wasn’t any reference to him or to this clock that I could find in my grandda’s collection.

  I changed course. I input the letter written in Irish into Google Translate. It was slow work, as the handwriting was difficult to decipher and a number of the letters had accents above them. I decided to do the translation one sentence at a time, in case I hadn’t transcribed a word accurately and needed to correct it.

  When the entire letter had been translated, my heart was almost pounding out of my chest with excitement. The letter itself wasn’t particularly interesting, except for the last line that included the word clock.

  My grandmother had owned a clock that apparentl
y my grandda had given her. There was nothing else about it contained in the letter, but it had to be the clock that my da now had. I mean, what were the odds that there were two different ones?

  I must’ve been a family heirloom of some sort. “Grandma, who were you?” I whispered under my breath as I scribbled notes. “Because I’m pretty sure you’re the key to everything.”

  But when my stomach growled, I realized that the sun had already set and I hadn’t eaten in almost ten hours. I glanced at my phone: it was a quarter till nine o’clock. I could either wait for the staff to leave for the day or venture downstairs and hope Mrs. Walsh would be nice enough to give me some spare crumbs for dinner.

  I collected the notes, papers, and books, not wanting to risk leaving them for someone to rifle through. Especially if the random stranger returned tonight to the library.

  I must’ve not been paying enough attention, though, because it was right before I was about to go to sleep that I realized I must’ve left the book of poetry in the library. It was just before midnight.

  “Hopefully I won’t have another run-in,” I murmured to myself as I made my way back to the library. I’ll admit, every creaking sound I heard made me nearly jump out of my skin. I nearly picked up a vase to throw at a dark corner, only to realize the sound I was hearing was the wind whistling outside.

  Chapter Five

  The library was large enough that it had more than one entrance. The entrance where I’d worked that afternoon was closer to my bedroom. Opening the door slowly, I peeked my head inside, but it was dark. I strained for any sounds, but once again, all I could hear was the wind.

  I blew out a breath. I needed to calm down, clearly. I flipped on a lamp on a nearby desk and went to grab the book. It had somehow fallen under the table I’d been working at. I crouched down to retrieve it when I heard a sound.