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

Downton Abbey, I reminded myself. And you’re hardly Lady Mary who’s never made a cup of coffee on her own.
I got dressed and, after asking an unsuspecting maid where the kitchen was located, made my way downstairs. I was afraid I’d gotten lost when I smelled food. I headed toward the scent of cooking meat, my mouth practically watering.
Before you got to the main part of the kitchen, there was a smaller entranceway that looked like a gigantic pantry. There were cans and bags of all kinds of food, along with fresh produce in baskets. I snagged a banana and began to eat it.
As I moved farther into the kitchen, I could hear food sizzling and what sounded like a coffeepot dinging that coffee was ready. There was a large wood stove in one corner, although it clearly hadn’t been used in decades. Windows lined the other side of the huge room, and I could just make out the white caps of the ocean waves.
I heard voices from around the corner to a smaller part of the kitchen that held what looked like the dishwasher and sink. A tall, skinny woman was saying something to a young man who couldn’t have been much older than me. They didn’t see me lurking until I cleared my throat.
The woman swiveled her head toward me. Honestly, she swiveled it so fast that I half-expected her to turn it 180 degrees like an owl. She narrowed her eyes at me.
“Who are you?” She looked at my sweats, my puppy slippers, and my oversized hoodie and said before I could answer, “You’re the American.”
“Um, hi. I was hungry, so I thought I’d get some breakfast.” I held up my already half-eaten banana, as if I needed to prove that, yes, I was hungry and consuming food on the premises.
The woman’s eyes narrowed at the banana in my hand. “I was going to use those for a fruit salad today,” she said.
The young guy at her elbow coughed into his shoulder and sauntered past me, whispering, “Good luck,” under his breath.
“Sorry. I didn’t know.” I held out the banana. “I don’t need it—”
“I’m not going to cook with a banana you’ve already eaten.”
Now I felt especially stupid. What was I doing? Flustered, I was close to tossing the banana in the trash and running back to my room, but I forced myself to take a deep breath. I set the stupid banana on a nearby counter and held out my hand. “I’m Niamh Gallagher.” Added in a harder tone, “Sean Gallagher’s granddaughter.”
The woman clucked her tongue. “I know who you are, lass.” She didn’t take my hand, though. She just kept staring at me, like she’d never seen someone like me in her life.
I was rather tempted to turn around and return to my room, but my stubbornness overtook my brain. It was one of my more admirable traits, in my opinion. Liam had learned early on that when I started to dig in my heels, he’d just have to give in.
(Okay, maybe he hadn’t yet learned that, as he could be just as stubborn. Oftentimes we’d just end up trying to out-stubborn each other until somebody told us to stop being idiots.)
“I’m sorry, you didn’t tell me your name,” I said, knowing full well she hadn’t introduced herself yet.
“Mrs. Janie Walsh.” She wiped her hands on her towel before turning away from me to continuing kneading some kind of dough.
“Did you know my grandda?” I knew Mrs. Walsh was busy, but I couldn’t help myself. The butler wasn’t going to tell me anything, and neither was Mr. McDonnell.
Mrs. Walsh pounded at the bread dough. “I’ve worked at this place for almost four decades. Aye, you could say I knew him.”
Forty years? That was dedication. “I didn’t know him. I left Ireland when I was really little.”
She looked up at me for a brief moment, her expression wry. “You’re a chatty thing, aren’t you?” She returned to her task, clearly very well-versed with kneading dough. “Your grandda was a hardheaded man, but he treated his staff well. That was enough for me.”
“He wasn’t all that fond of my brother, Liam.”
“He wasn’t fond of anyone.” Mrs. Walsh let out a breath. “Well, except for his dear wife, your grandmother. What a dear lady she was. Never high in the instep, either. When she died, I don’t think he ever recovered.”
I’d never heard much about my grandmother. She’d died long before either Liam or I was born, and given our father’s disappearance, I’d had no way to find out more about her. All I knew was that her name had been Mary and she’d died when she was in her early thirties.
“He loved her? That’s kind of hard to believe.”
Mrs. Walsh just gave me a withering look.
I shrugged. “He wasn’t particularly kind to my brother or to our da.” Trying to sound casual, I added, “Did you know my da? Connor Gallagher?”
At the mention of my da’s name, Mrs. Walsh’s face instantly closed, like a door slamming shut. She turned to open the oven, and after placing the bread inside, she closed the door with a surprisingly loud thwack.
Turning back to me, she said, “Lass, there are many things you don’t know, and if you want some advice, let me give you some.” Brushing the flour from her hands, she said before I could reply, “Don’t ask too many questions. Some secrets are meant to stay that way.”
She didn’t give me a chance to respond. Feeling a frisson of ice slither down my spine, I rubbed at the goosebumps springing up on my arms.
Geez, what the hell had that advice meant? Now I was half-wondering if there was a dead body under the floorboards like that Edgar Allen Poe story. Please, no dead bodies whispering to me. I really don’t have time for that.
But if Mrs. Walsh had known my da, then maybe she had information that could help me find him. I was about to follow her and badger