Reading Up a Storm (25 page)

Curious to see how Lucy's sleuthing habits began? Read on for a sneak peek at the first delightfully puzzling mystery in the nationally bestselling Lighthouse Library series by Eva Gates,

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Only in the very back of my mind, in my most secret dreams, did I ever dare hope I'd have such a moment.

Too bad it was being ruined by the cacophony of false compliments and long-held grievances going on behind me.

The party was a private affair, a viewing of the new collection for staff and board members of the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, as well as local dignitaries and community supporters, before the official opening tomorrow. We were celebrating the arrival of a complete set of Jane Austen first editions, on loan for three months.

Jane Austen. My literary idol. So close.

I tried to block out everyone and everything and concentrate. I rubbed my hands together. Perspiration was building inside the loose white gloves. That, of course, was the purpose of the gloves: to keep human sweat and other impurities off the precious objects.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes. And I touched the worn leather cover.

I imagined I could feel the very power of the words themselves coming up through my fingers.

“Incredible,” a voice beside me said.

My eyes flew open. I snatched my hand back, embarrassed to be caught in a moment so emotional, so
personal
.

“Go ahead, honey,” Bertie said, with a laugh. Her eyes danced with amusement. She understood. “Open it.”

“Am I allowed to? I wouldn't want to damage anything.”

“These books are precious, to be sure. But they'll be put back in their cabinet as soon as the party's over. And they've been cherished, cared for, and thus aren't as fragile as some would be at that age. Enjoy, Lucy. Enjoy. But don't spend too long here. I have people I need you to meet.”

The head librarian touched my arm lightly, gave me another smile, and went back to her guests.

I turned the heavy cover, flipped pages with shaking hands, and was soon gazing in awestruck wonder at the frontispiece of the first volume of
Sense and Sensibility
, by “A Lady.” A Lady all the world now knew to be Miss Jane Austen. An illustrated first edition, printed in London in 1811. I closed my eyes again and breathed. The scent was of old paper and aging leather, carrying with it memories of the foggy streets of London, the sound of horse's hooves rattling across cobblestones, the gentle rustle of skirts and petticoats, and the crackle of fire.

All I wanted to do was to gather the volume into my hands, spirit it away to a cozy corner with a good reading lamp, and curl up to spend the rest of the night simply enjoying it. Reading it, smelling it, touching it. To be lost in Austen's delightful pastoral England. A world of balls and dances. Of men in handsome uniforms and women in beautiful gowns. Romance and laughter—as well as foolishness and heartbreak. Sense versus sensibility.

With a sigh, I remembered that I had duties. They might be informal ones, but they were still duties.

I closed the book, returned it to its place, slipped off the gloves, and laid them back on the table for the next person to use. I pasted on my fake smile, turned, and stepped forward, ready to plunge into the party.

I was almost knocked off my feet as an excessively thin man shoved me aside. His tiny black eyes blazed with lust as bright as the flashing light on the top of this historic lighthouse. The tip of his tongue was trapped between small browning teeth, and a spot of drool touched the corner of his plump lips. To my horror, he extended an ungloved hand toward the book.

“Excuse me,” I said in what I hoped was my best librarian tone. “Those books are extremely valuable. You must put on the gloves. Please don't lean over them like that.”

His nose might have been made for peering down at uppity young librarians. “Excuse me,” he said with an accent I'd last heard when Prince William visited America. “I am well aware of the proper storage and handling of books. I am, in fact, quite disappointed in Bertie for
agreeing to house the collection in this”—he waved his hand as if encompassing not only the crowded room but also the lighthouse we were standing in, the Outer Banks, the moist sea air, and the waves crashing against the sand dunes, maybe even North Carolina itself—“place.”

“This is a library,” I said. “The proper place for books. Besides, Miss Austen lived near the sea. Her entire country is bound by the sea. I'm sure her books are delighted to be breathing salty air once again.”

He sniffed. As well he might. I do have a tendency to get carried away sometimes.

“You,” he said, still peering down his long, patrician nose, enunciating each word carefully, “must be the new girl.”

His tone wasn't friendly or at all welcoming. But if I was going to get on here, in my new job, my new life, I'd pretend he'd intended it to be. I shoved my hand forward. “Lucy Richardson. I'm the new assistant librarian. Pleased to meet you, Mr. . . .”

He barely touched my outstretched fingers. “Theodore. Everyone knows me as Theodore. At your service, madam. If there is anything you need to know, young woman, about the handling and collection of rare books, you may call on me to enlighten you.” He dug in the pocket of his tweed jacket, which emitted a strong aroma of pipe smoke, and pulled out a small square of paper. “My card. Now, if you'll excuse me.” He turned away from me. I waited until he was pulling on the gloves and left him to examine the books in peace. I put the card in my pocket without reading it.

“Don't you mind Theodore, honey.” My aunt Ellen slipped her arm around me. “We call him Teddy. Drives
him nuts. He's just plain old Teddy Kowalski from North Carolina. He was born about ten miles from this very spot, over in Nags Head. Teddy was a smart little tyke; I'll give him that. Always had his head in books when the other boys were tossing balls around. He went to Duke and got a degree in English literature, and came home pretending to be an English lord or some such nonsense.”

I laughed. “Did you know him when you were children?”

“Sakes no! He was a couple years ahead of Josie in school.”

“How old is he?”

“Thirty-five.”

“Really? I would have put him in his fifties.” I glanced at the display table. Theodore was bent over
Pride and Prejudice.
He'd propped a pair of reading glasses on his nose.

“He deliberately tries to give that impression. See those glasses? Plain glass. He thinks they make him look more professorial.”

“Fool,” I said.

Bertie appeared at my side. “Don't take him for that, Lucy.” My new boss's tone was serious. Almost warning. “Teddy has airs and pretentions, but he knows everything there is to know about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English literature. He's a serious collector, or at least he would be if he had the money. A word of warning: always check his bags when he leaves, and if he's wearing a big coat, make him open it. He'll protest, act affronted, but . . .”

“Are you three going to stand here chatting all night
long? You need to introduce Lucy. Everyone's simply dying to meet her.” It was Josie, my cousin. If I didn't love Josie so much, I'd hate her. She was everything I am not. Strikingly beautiful, with long, glossy hair bleached by the sun, a pale face full of dancing freckles, cornflower blue eyes that seemed to always be sparkling, perfect white teeth. As proof that life was never fair, Josie was model tall and model thin (except for the generous breasts—more unfairness!). The irony was compounded by the fact that she was the owner and chief baker of the best bakery in the Outer Banks, if not the entire state of North Carolina. Thinking of Josie and her business, I snuck a glance at the dessert buffet she'd catered. I felt a pound settling onto my hips. Hips that definitely did not need further poundage.

“Josie's right, as always,” Aunt Ellen said. “You best be meeting folks. Making friendly.”

“Come on,” Bertie said, “I'll introduce you.”

As its name suggests, the library I now worked in was situated in a lighthouse—a fabulous old lighthouse on Bodie Island, part of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The minute I'd entered the building—long before that; the minute I'd first seen it from the road when I was a child on vacation—I'd loved it. What an imaginative, absolutely perfect place to house a library. All round whitewashed walls, iron spiral staircases going up . . . and up . . . and up, tall windows in thick walls overlooking the marsh on one side and the sand dunes of the shore and the storm-tossed ocean on the other. The shorter back staircase went up only one level, to where the rare and valuable books were housed. The general collection was accessible from the main staircase
and filled three floors. Fiction was on the first, as was some nonfiction, with children's books on the second and Charlene's office and her research materials on the third level.

Above that, another turn on the spiral staircase to my own room. Small—pokey really—but absolutely perfect for sipping a cup of tea, reading, gazing out at the ocean, and daydreaming. And worrying that I'd made the worst decision of my life.

From there, the staircase had another hundred or more winding steps to reach the top of the lighthouse. Beyond my room, the stairs were seldom used in this day of electric, computer-programmed lamps.

Since I'd started work here all of four days ago, I figured I'd lost enough weight on those stairs that I could indulge in one of Josie's Cozy Bakery's gooey pecan tarts.

Music, Mozart at the moment, came quietly from the sound system, and the room was full of the low buzz of conversation.

Outside, night was falling, bringing with it a heavy ocean mist carried on a cool wet wind. Inside, we were warm and dry, bathed in soft yellow light. The partygoers were women mostly, with a few husbands dragged along. I smiled to myself at the thought that some of the husbands had probably been persuaded to come only upon hearing that the catering was by Josie's Cozy Bakery. Everyone wore their almost-best, like proper Southern fund-raisers. Colorful summer dresses and heels, primarily, and a few pantsuits, all accented by tasteful and expensive jewelry. Most of the men were in open-necked shirts, but a few wore a jacket and tie.

The majority of the interior lights had been switched off, leaving only a scattering of wall sconces to illuminate the room. Electric, of course. Candlelight would have been perfect, but this was, after all, a public place and a library at that. The alcove against the back wall, where generations of lighthouse keepers had sat to record the weather and the temperament of the ocean, ships passing, and the routine of lighting and extinguishing the great lamps, was now the central display area. Tonight the Austen collection took pride of place. That area was brightly lit and protected by a red velvet rope, warning anyone who wanted a closer look that red wine and gooey pecan tarts did not go well with nineteenth-century paper. When the display opened tomorrow for the public, the rope would mean “Keep back.”

“Ronald's been on vacation.” Bertie tipped her head toward a short man in his mid-forties pouring himself a glass of wine at the circulation desk that had been converted into a bar for the party. Thick white hair hung in curls around his collar, and he wore shiny black loafers, sharply ironed gray trousers, a crisp white dress shirt, and a giant yellow polka-dot bow tie. “You haven't had a chance to meet. Come on, I'll introduce you. He's the children's librarian and we're very, very lucky to have him.” We hadn't taken more than a step before Bertie gripped my arm and jerked me to a halt. “Too late! He's fallen into her clutches.” Bertie whirled around. “Who else do you need to meet?”

I craned my neck to see over her and the crowd of partygoers. A stately Southern matron, of the sort I—a born-and-bred New Englander—imagined them to be, was waving her finger in Ronald's face. He smiled and
nodded, but I couldn't help but notice that his eyes were jerking around the room, looking desperately for an escape. And not finding it.

“Who's that with him?” I asked Bertie.

She dropped her voice. “Mrs. Peterson, one of our most active patrons. She's a newcomer, meaning she might have been born on the Outer Banks, but her grandparents were not. Her husband, however, is a member of one of our oldest families. She thinks Ronald should be her children's personal librarian and reading instructor. She'd just love to have him on her staff. If not for the minor fact that they have no staff, because her husband lost all of his family's money when he sank every penny into a Canadian gold-mining exploration company that turned out not to have a speck of gold in the ground. Poor Ronald. Mrs. Peterson took his vacation as a personal insult. You don't have to worry much about her, honey. She hasn't the slightest interest in adult books. I doubt she's read a single book since high school. When I announced that I'd been able to secure a visit of the Austen collection, Mrs. Peterson actually said, out loud”—here Bertie put on a very good imitation of a snooty, high-pitched voice—“‘But why would anyone be interested in such
old
books?'”

We left Ronald, looking increasingly desperate under the barrage of Mrs. Peterson's verbal assault, to his own devices.

“Where's Charles?” I asked, referring to one of my favorite library employees.

“Banished to the closet by the staff break room for the duration of the party.”

“How's he taking that?”

“If you listen closely you can hear the howls of indignation from here.” Charles (named in honor of Mr. Dickens) was the library cat. A gorgeous Himalayan with a black face and expressive blue eyes in a ball of long, tan fur that must weigh a good thirty pounds (I wondered if he frequented Josie's Cozy Bakery), Charles was particularly loved by the library's younger patrons. “Mrs. Peterson is allergic to cats. Or so she says. She's starting to make noises about her dear little Dallas coming home from the library with watering eyes.”

Aunt Ellen chimed in, “If she dares to suggest you get rid of Charles, I'll . . . I'll do something.”