Chapter 28
Twenty-eight
Edwin
A couple days later, Prince James was perfectly good to his word and gave me the entire week off to fix my house. I’d been reluctant, afraid he wouldn’t eat on his own, but he’d promised not to skip meals. I chose to believe him.
For now.
I had informants silently watching him, so he’d better, otherwise I’d make the trip to the palace just to eat with him. See if I didn’t.
I was glad to have time to work on my disaster of a house, however. That gift I wouldn’t look in the mouth. In fact, my family had gone through their house and mine, taking out anything salvageable before a construction crew came in and removed the waterlogged and damaged items.
Compared to my parents’, my house hadn’t fared too badly.
In fact, a few of the houses on my street were still technically livable.
The bottom floor was a loss in terms of furniture, my books—sob—and other things.
All the walls had been ripped out, as well as the floors and kitchen cabinets.
The bathroom, mostly made of tile, had fared fine though.
My second story barely had any damage. The furniture and clothing were something of a loss, but the water had drained down the stairs quickly enough to not impact the structural integrity of the house itself.
Aside from some painting and replacing busted windows, not much work had to be done up there—a marked relief.
After ripping everything out, the construction crew was now rebuilding it.
I heard the saws and hammers going in the kitchen, as they were putting the floors back in first. An obvious first step.
Meanwhile, I sat on the stairs—the bottom part had already been ripped out and replaced, just not stained yet to match the older wood—and tried to write up a list of all that must be replaced.
I’d been in this house nearly ten years, which meant I had accumulated quite a bit, so it was hard to think of everything off the top of my head. The list would help, hopefully.
Couches, chairs, bed, armoire, and table had all been ordered already. Prince James had sent me on a shopping spree with his checkbook yesterday, which had smelled strongly of a boyfriend taking care of me...
A knock came at the open door. “Furniture delivery!”
I jumped up, greeting the burly man at the door. “Thank you for coming, I know it’s difficult to get to this street right now with all the construction.”
Not just housing reconstruction, either.
Prince James was capitalizing on the situation and digging up the streets to install a new sewer system.
No point in fixing everything only to tear it up four months from now to fix the streets again.
Besides, this way we’d have proper drainage when bad storms hit in the future.
It was one of those projects he’d always intended to do, but now the timeline had been moved up.
“No problem at all. Our order said you only wanted bed, armoire, and bedroom chair for now?”
“They’re still replacing my floors downstairs,” I explained.
“Ahh. I getcha. All right, we’ll bring this up now and set up the bed for you.”
“Thank you very much.”
Since I’d been expecting them, the construction crew had replaced the foyer flooring and repaired the stairs yesterday. I wished the delivery crew safety and luck as everyone headed up the stairs while hauling heavy, bulky furniture.
Right on the heels of the bed going upstairs were two palace runners who I knew well and was rather surprised to see.
I’d gone up to check how things were going in the office every night before bed—as I had to sleep at the palace anyway—and had been airily assured everything was fine.
Two palace runners showing up at my doorstep did not suggest everything was fine.
“Ruffy, Naomi, what are you doing here?” I gestured them in while speaking.
“Delivery,” Ruffy answered with a bright smile. His name utterly suited him, with frizzy brown hair always hanging in his eyes. He was rather a favorite of mine with his infectious smile and amazing work ethic.
Naomi, newer to the palace, was half a head taller and skinny.
She was also a workhorse who could outrun almost all the other runners, making her another favorite.
Right now, she wore quite the knowing little smirk, as only a teenage girl could manage.
“Prince James had us go shopping for you. We’re bringing you part of the delivery. ”
“Part of…?” What the hell had he bought me now?
For that matter, when had he even had time to put this order together? The man had been working from sunup to midnight ever since the Wrath.
Ruffy turned so his back was to me, revealing two stacks of books, all neatly bound with cord and tied onto a carrier on his back. Those carriers were normally used to send large documents from office to office. I’d never seen them utilized for personal things before.
I shifted the carrier off his back, grunting at the weight—it had to be forty books, easily—then read the spines.
Full Windblown series by Susanna Barman.
Several titles from Jesse Archer. Three books from Solomon Rexword, including a book out of print for the past decade that I’d never been able to purchase.
It was so rare I’d only had a chance to borrow it from the library once.
Seeing these treasures in front of me, replacing some of what I’d lost, made me so emotional I almost broke down crying again.
“Naomi, turn,” Ruffy encouraged. “Let him see what else we found.”
She obligingly turned, and I realized she was fully loaded too. My eyes scanned the spines and my heart lurched again.
Somehow, they’d found the complete collection of Tabitha Langridge. I’d tried for years to manage that and they’d done it. Including three books I’d never read.
“Nimus, god of all that is written,” I whispered, so completely overwhelmed my knees went weak. “Where the hell did you find those?”
“We’re on a scavenger hunt!” Naomi grinned over her shoulder, quite proud of herself.
“Prince James gives us a silver coin for every book we can find on the list. We’re making bank.
Oh, this set I found at an estate sale. We stopped in, just in case, ’cause it was across the street from Wildman’s, y’know the bookstore up on Hilltop Street? ”
“I do. I’m a frequent customer there.” An estate sale? How smart of them to check.
“Anyway, that’s where we found all of Langridge’s books. Er, this is all of them, right?”
“You’ve found the complete collection.” She looked proud of herself, and I had to tack on, “Including three books I’ve never read or owned. So you two did an amazing job.”
“Really?” Her tone shot up incredulously, then she did a little dance and laughed. “Wow, we should get a bonus.”
“You should, and I’ll tell Prince James myself. Hell, if he doesn’t reward you, I will. Here, we’re going to be in the way shortly, follow me upstairs. We’ll stack those in the spare room for now.”
“Sure,” they chorused.
Both kids followed me up and set the books down in a safe spot, then I had them show me the list Prince James had written out for them.
I couldn’t believe how comprehensive it was.
Every one of my favorite authors was on there, sometimes with series names, sometimes with the instruction Buy it all.
This was by no means the entirety of my library, but no one else besides myself would know that, either.
Any bookworm would agree the true love language was buying books.
Nothing was sexier than someone being able to rattle off their significant other’s favorite authors, because it meant they’d been paying close attention to what made their lover happy.
Prince James had managed to do that here, and we weren’t even dating.
Seeing these books, knowing how much effort he’d gone to in order to offset the devastation I’d felt at the loss of my library, made me seriously want to kiss him.
What I wanted to know was how the hell had Prince James, a man who had never, ever been in my house, known which authors were in my personal library?
No, seriously, how? I’d never mentioned which authors were favorites or how much I loved to read.
How had he thought to do this, for that matter, because I hadn’t mentioned my library to him.
But he’d known, somehow, that of all the things he could do for me, replacing my lost books would make me happiest.
This question stuck with me throughout the rest of the afternoon.
The kids bounced off on their merry way, back on the scavenger hunt, determined to find every book on the list and claim their silver.
For that matter, I wanted them to succeed, so I gave them a few hints of other stores they might try.
My furniture was set up, bed frame put together and mattress on.
The workmen called it quits around dinnertime.
I let them go with much thanks and an agreement to come back tomorrow afternoon.
They’d need to pick up more materials, as they’d exhausted all they’d brought in, but they’d finished putting in the floor.
I considered their progress a miracle and wasn’t complaining.
I closed up my house and walked toward the palace, thinking as I went. Prince James had given many signs that not all was as it appeared. Signs he knew far more than he should.
I’d considered the theory of regression before, and every new piece of information seemed to support it.