A Limited Edition Murder

Book 10: Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery

by Lauren Elliott

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

While in England, a first edition of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights leads bookstore owner Addie Greyborne to a murder on the moors . . .

Although enjoying her extended stay working at Second Chance Books and Bindery in West Yorkshire, Addie still feels adrift—far from home, her friends, and her own beloved bookstore, Beyond the Page Books and Curios. The engagement party of her dear friend, Tony, at Milton Manor promises to be a joyful distraction. But there’s an ill wind blowing at the estate: When Tony presents his fiancé with a special copy of Wuthering Heights as an engagement gift, the lord of the manor insists the book was stolen from his library . . .

Things go from troubling to tragic when Addie takes her Yorkipoo, Pippi, out for a walk on the moors and stumbles across the body of a young woman. When the police suspect Tony of foul play, Addie vows to get to the bottom of what’s going on. But it’s a twisted, treacherous path to the truth and Addie will need to watch her every step . . .

Release date: May 21, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

“Yikes! Slow down!” Addie Greyborne shrieked, wobbled, and white-knuckled the handlebars of her red, vintage bicycle as she swerved to the far left. “A little fast for this road, don’t you think?” she grumbled, scowling over her right shoulder as a car whooshed past her on the narrow roadway.

She glanced down into the front wicker basket at her little passenger. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right,” she scoffed, shaking her head. “After a year, I should be able to remember to ride on the left and not the right side of the street.”

Pippi, her small tricolored Yorkipoo, perked her ears and sniffed the air as they sailed past the bakery.

“Pfft. Just like you to be thinking about filling your tummy again and acting so nonchalant about our near-death experience.”

Pippi yipped.

“I know. I know it’s because we’ve had too many near misses for it to faze you anymore, right?” Pippi let out another yip. Addie softly chuckled but inwardly thanked the powers that be she hadn’t gotten them killed with her inability to adjust to the British driving system.

Addie tapped her feet slightly back on the brakes, slowing her speed as she continued to maneuver down Crooked Lane—named for good reason. It was Moorscrag, West Yorkshire’s main shopping street and the location of her morning destination. She hopped off, balanced her bike on the kickstand, and secured it with a chain lock behind one of the wooden planter boxes out front. She grabbed her furry little friend from the basket and, once inside, set Pippi on the floor. Within seconds, Pippi scurried to her bed behind the sales counter and settled in with an umph.

“Good morning, Jasper,” Addie called out to the young man teetering precariously on the top step of an old library ladder high overhead, and she shook her head in amazement.

While Jasper Henderson wasn’t known for his brightness, he was a nice guy and didn’t deserve the consequences of his “I’m invincible and can do everything” attitude, which fate sometimes toyed with.

“What did Mr. Pressman tell you about standing on the top of the ladder?” Addie exchanged her running shoes for a pair of flats from her backpack, then tossed her bag under the counter. “I seem to recall that he specifically mentioned the danger—”

“I know. I know,” scoffed Jasper, descending to the wood-planked floor. “It’s bad enough when the old man’s here, but now yer talking like him and me mum too.”

“And if your mom was here, what do you think she’d do, seeing you up there like that?”

“She’d give me a slap.”

“Should I?”

“No.” He hung his head sheepishly. “But there’s times when it’s the only way to get to the books Pressman wants me to sort through and insists on keeping in those dusty old piles on the top of the shelf.” He gestured with a wild wave of his hand to the stacks of books Reginald Pressman, the owner of Second Chance Books and Bindery, insisted on keeping in the front area of the shop—and clearly had for the past thirty plus years—just in case a customer wanted to see one that was up there.

When Addie first started working for Mr. Pressman in the bookshop nearly a year ago—thanks to an introduction by way of her old high school boyfriend, now good friend and landlord, best-selling author Anthony Radcliff—her new employer told her he hadn’t been through the books on the top of the shelves in a few years, which was an understatement. At the time, she’d offered to sort through them, but he’d hear none of it. He said he hired her to manage the front of the shop while he worked in the back on book restorations, but said not to worry. He’d be hiring an apprentice soon, and it would be a good way for them to have an introduction into the world of classics, so the books could stay where they were for now.

As it turned out, a few months later, he did hire a bindery apprentice, but Jasper hadn’t really proven himself to be the high-achieving student Mr. Pressman had in mind and required constant nudging to perform even the most basic tasks required of the craft, although it was a trade that Jasper professed was his lifetime calling. Given the young man’s behavior, it was more like his mother had told him to get a job, and this was the only available one in the village. But Addie didn’t have time to dwell on that. She was bursting with news and knew that Mr. Pressman would be as excited to hear it as she was to tell.

“Speaking of Mr. Pressman, isn’t he in yet?” She asked, scanning the front room of the bookshop. “It’s so unlike him to be late.”

“He in’t late,” said Jasper, rolling the ladder over the track to the back corner of the room.

Addie waited for it and smiled at the click that told her he had remembered to secure the ladder in place this time, a safety feature she had initiated. It was a small but successful deterrent for some of the children in the village, who enjoyed zipping the ladder along the track from one end of the sidewall bookshelf to the other and back again.

“He just went to collect the post. He should be back soon, or so he said half an hour ago when he left.”

“You were in early then?”

“Yeah. We . . . ah, I mean, he worked on that book for yer mate until late last night, and then the old man wanted me in early, so I could help him while he finished it up.”

“He’s finished restoring Tony’s first edition of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights?”

Addie was glad Jasper corrected himself as to what his part in the restoration process had been. He might be able to convince the local girls down at the pub he had far more responsibilities here than he did, but until he proved himself to Mr. Pressman, he was not much more than the man’s gofer.

“Uh-ha, that’s what I said,” muttered Jasper from the far corner.

“Did you hear that, Pippi?”

Pippi raised her head, stretched, shook herself, circled, and curled back down in her bed.

Addie let out a short laugh. “I know, you’re probably already thinking about morning teatime and the treat Emily Green at the bakery will have waiting for you, but this is exciting news. It means the book will be ready for Tony to present to Hailey at their engagement party Saturday night.”

“Did you say something?” asked Jasper, coming around the end of a bookcase with his face stuck in a book.

“Watch where you’re going,” she shrieked, as the young man bumped the sale-rack display on the end of the shelving unit.

He glanced up, looked blankly around, closed the book, and grinned. “What were you saying about Miss Granger?”

Addie couldn’t stop the eye roll that overtook her and involuntarily groaned. “I said that’s great news. Tony will have the book for their engagement party.”

“Yeah . . .” Youthful hope disappeared from his eyes, and he dropped his gaze. “Their engagement party,” he muttered, looked at the book in his hand, and held it up. “But don’t ye think Hailey would like a newer copy of Wuthering Heights better? The one that guy wants to give her is older than Mr. Pressman and twice as wrinkled.”

Addie squelched her second eye roll in less than a minute. There was no need to offend this lovestruck young man and make the remainder of her and Mr. Pressman’s day worse for it. She knew Jasper had fallen head over heels for Tony’s fiancée months ago, when Tony first brought Hailey into the bookshop to meet everyone. One look at the stunning, strawberry-blond-haired woman—who had a willowy physique that made her appear to be walking on air when she crossed the bookshop to take the young man’s hand in greeting—had done its worst on the poor lad. He had fallen hopelessly in love.

When Jasper discovered she was a literary historian at the British Museum in London, he had confessed to Addie that he was thinking of changing trades and going back to school for his degree in literature. Since he was still here and, as far as Addie knew, hadn’t registered at university, his mother must have talked him out of it by telling him he had the opportunity to learn a trade from one of the best bookbinders in the country and to appreciate that.

Since that first introduction, and as Hailey and Tony’s relationship progressed, Second Chance Books had become a regular stop in the village for her whenever she came up from London. Jasper, of course, fantasized that she dropped by regularly to see him and continued to use the limited arsenal he had in his twenty-year-old bag of “how to woo a woman” tricks, completely ignoring or being oblivious to the fact that Hailey was over fourteen years his senior and planning to marry another man.

Addie drew in a deep breath, rounded the end of the sales counter, and tipped Jasper’s face up from admiring the new book he held, making him look her straight in the eye. “You do remember that Hailey loves old books,” Addie said softly. “So much so that she secured a job only a few miles up the road in Haworth and will begin work there early next year, after the current curator retires, and after she and Tony are married, don’t you?”

“That’s another reason to give her this new copy. She must get pretty tired of looking at old things all day and then to have to go home and look at another old book and that . . . that old man.”

“I’ll have you know that old man, as you called him, is the same age as I am.”

“Cor blimey, I knew ya were old, but I had no idea how old.” He stepped back and stared at Addie like she’d suddenly grown another head.

Addie hated to burst his love bubble, but enough was enough. Be kind, her inner voice shrieked, even though she wanted to scream in his face about his childishness. She bit her tongue and glowered at him when he turned away. Then she had an idea. Perhaps he needed to see the truth about Hailey for himself. She did drop in often without Tony, which might be why Jasper got the wrong impression about her visiting the shop as often as she did. No matter how many times Addie explained it, he couldn’t understand that she was a true bibliophile, and the eclectic selection of classics found in Second Chance Books made any book lover drool. Her excitement when she came in had nothing to do with him.

She took a breath and smiled. “I hope you’re planning to attend the party Saturday night. I understand it’s going to be most entertaining, and there’s going to be a very special guest in attendance.”

“I knew it. Hailey told ya to invite me, right?” The young man’s eyes lit up.

“Not if the woman’s got half a brain in ’er head, she wouldn’t,” scoffed a gravelly, lilted voice from the far side of the bookcase. “Who’d want a gangly lovestruck boy hanging around ’er all night when she’s set to marry a famous author? Give yer head a shake, lad.” Mr. Pressman rounded the end of the bookshelf and pinned his faded brown eyes on Addie. “But who’s this special guest who’s coming?”

Addie bit her inner cheek to keep her smile in check. The fact that her boss, with his wrinkled skin and tousled gray hair, looked as old as the books he kept at the tippy top of his bookshelves never ceased to amuse her.

“That’s what I’ve been bursting to tell you. Tony heard last night that his publisher, Lord Robert Bentley, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth, have also decided to attend the engagement party.”

“Are ya daft, girl? It’s been going on three years since his lordship set foot in Milton Manor, and that visit, after being gone near twenty years, only lasted one day.”

“That’s what Tony said. Interestingly enough, they also plan to stay on all next week to entertain their London friends who will be accompanying them.”

“I wonder what’s gotten into him,” muttered the old man thoughtfully. “I thought that young woman . . . er . . . Lady Elizabeth, whom he eventually married after his first wife, bless her sweet soul”—he glanced up and crossed his heart—“couldn’t abide country living? That’s why they left and why they’ve not been back.”

“I’m sure Tony will find out more as they firm up plans this week, but for now, that’s all I know.” She glanced over at Jasper, who’d clearly lost interest in the conversation and was perusing a nearby bookshelf, no doubt looking for another gift to bestow on Hailey this coming Saturday night. Her gaze settled back on Mr. Pressman. “I do know, though, that Tony has mixed feelings about it.”

“I bet he has, especially if that little wisp of a girl has had a change of heart, and his lordship’s finally decided to be lord of the manor again. It would mean Tony would have to move out, and that would be a loss. He’s well liked here, and it’s a boon to the village to have a famous author in residence. More so than that old windbag,” he muttered.

“Um, I think, in Tony’s mind, he’s a bit more afraid that his lordship’s arrival and continued stay will take the attention off the reason for the party and dim the light he hopes to shine on Hailey.”

“Hailey’s here?” Jasper thrust his head of brown, disheveled hair around the corner of the bookshelf, groomed it with his hand free of a book, and glanced expectantly at the door.

Addie shook her head. Her eyes fluttered painfully as she had to squelch her third eye roll in less than half an hour, and she focused on what Mr. Pressman held in his hand.

“Is that what I think it is by the ‘Air Mail’ sticker on the front?” She gestured to the brown envelope.

Mr. Pressman glanced down at his hand, as though seeing what he held for the first time. “Aye, sorry, lass. Yes. It looks like yer weekly update from that bakery lady.” He held the envelope out to her, but his voice drifted as though his mind were still somewhere else. “Excuse me. I’ll be in the back if ya need me.” He slowly walked toward the back room.

His reaction to Lord Bentley’s visit wasn’t exactly what Addie thought it would be. Rather than being excited by the news, Mr. Pressman had seemed concerned and in no mood to talk about it. Addie shrugged, hoping he would open up over their morning tea about whatever had given him pause, and tore open the envelope.

Even though she regularly video-chatted with her best friend, Serena Ludlow, and her Beyond the Page Bookstore manager, Paige Stringer, she looked forward to Martha Stringer’s weekly snail-mail updates, which were always filled with the latest gossip back in Greyborne Harbor, Massachusetts.

Not that she condoned gossip, but Martha was far more colorful and detailed about the goings-on in her hometown than her friends ever were. She flipped open the three-page weekly report and hoped for something juicy today because Serena had been oddly vague about a number of things when they had video-chatted the day before. She excitedly scanned down the first page and let out a sharp gasp. “Marc’s getting married?”

“I have a bone to pick with you,” snapped Addie, fixing her gaze on the small phone screen. “Me?” Serena’s brown eyes widened.

“Yes, you. I spoke with you yesterday and—”

“Mommy’s here, Ollie. Okay, I’ll be right there. Sorry, Addie, but—”

“Serena Ludlow! Don’t you dare pull the mommy card on me. I know for a fact it’s only seven in the morning there, and I can see little Ollie and Addie sitting at the table right behind you, happily munching on their breakfast. No, no, no, don’t you dare look away from me to try to hide all those splotchy red freckles that match your hair and are no doubt popping up all over your face as we speak.”

“Well, the kids have been feeling a bit off, maybe I caught—”

“Don’t try to play me. I know you too well, and I know that’s a sure, telltale sign that you’re hiding something. I spoke to you not even a full day ago, and you never said a word about your brother getting married. I want you to look me directly in the eye and tell me, why the big secret?”

“Martha, right?”

“Don’t go blaming her for you not being honest with me.”

“I wasn’t dishonest.” The way she thrust it out, Serena’s lower lip could have supported Addie’s cup of morning tea.

“Guilty by omission then. But why the big secret, or did he tell you not to tell me for some reason?”

“No, and I was going to, honest.” Then she added, mumbling, “You know, when you come home in two weeks.”

“Why not now?”

Serena met Addie’s gaze. “Because I was afraid you’d change your mind again about coming back. Like you have every other time this past year when something happened in Greyborne Harbor you didn’t want to deal with.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? Let’s see, there was last year, when you were scheduled to return from your two-week holiday, but then found out that what’s his name—oh yeah, the cad, Doctor Simon Emerson—”

“Simon is not a cad. He’s a good man who was put in a very difficult situation.”

“Have you forgotten how he blew you off for Laurel Hill? The same woman he told you didn’t mean anything to him anymore?”

“I haven’t forgotten, and I had a feeling that was eventually going to happen, which is why I broke it off with him, before I left, remember?”

“If that’s true, then why didn’t you come home after your two-week holiday, like you were scheduled to?”

“We’ve been through this so many times, Serena.” Addie let out an exasperated breath. “You know well enough why. It’s because then the wounds of what happened in the church, and everything else that transpired after, like discovering they also had a son together, were still too fresh. Plus, after finding out who I really was and not who I thought I was my whole life . . . well, I just needed a little more time before I went back and had to face the fallout from it all. You know all the ‘poor Addie’ looks I’d get around town. You should know. You talked to me every day. Did it seem like that news about them was something I could deal with back then? Not to mention having to explain to all the nosy types in town that my great-aunt wasn’t really my aunt but my grandmother and that my whole life had been a lie.”

“No. . . . I know it was a tough time for you, with so much going on,” Serena said hesitantly, “but then later you didn’t want to deal with the fact that Laurel sold her little house, and they bought a newer, bigger one for the three of them.” She hung her head and sniffled. “It just felt like you never wanted to come home, and I miss you.”

“I miss you too, and the kids, and my house and my shop and Paige and Catherine, but you know exactly why I couldn’t come back after that bit of news. Their new house is right down the street from my house, which meant I’d have to drive by it every day.” Addie shook her head. “I wasn’t ready then to take a regular trip down memory lane about . . . about . . .” She dropped her voice, “what could have been between me and Simon had our wedding not imploded.”

“See, every time something happened here, you stayed longer there—”

“I’m going to cut you off right there. It wasn’t every time something happened in Greyborne Harbor. It was every time things changed between Simon and Laurel. You told me months ago that Marc was dating that woman . . . what’s her name?”

“Whitney Wilder.” Serena let out an annoyed sigh. “See, you can’t even remember her name. Is that because you blocked it out?”

“No! But I do recall she is the new managing editor of the Greyborne Harbor Daily News, right? And I remember I told you I was happy that he’d finally found someone, and that someone sounded perfect for him, if she made him happy, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but since they decided to get married, I was afraid . . . well, I was afraid it might have stirred up old feelings you used to have for him, and you’d use it as another excuse not to come home,” Serena said, her voice trailing off.

“Look,” Addie shook her head in exasperation, “I know you always had a fantasy about us being related by marriage—real sisters, as you called it way back when Marc and I were together. Listen to me now, though: That isn’t ever going to happen. I have no romantic feelings left for Marc. He was a good friend when I needed one before I left. No spark was rekindled. We’re friends, that’s all, and he must feel the same way too, because it wasn’t long after that he and Whitney got together.”

“You still had me then, didn’t you? You didn’t need Marc too.”

“Yes, but he also helped me solve a murder that hit pretty close to home, remember?”

“Don’t ever tell Police Chief Marc Chandler he helped you.” Serena softly chuckled.

“Don’t worry. I won’t. So don’t forget it was the outcome and what I learned about that seventy-year-old murder that also sent my world spinning out of control on top of everything that happened with Simon.” Addie fought the tears that burned behind her eyes. “But forget about all that. Tell me everything. When’s their wedding, where is it, and—”

“Addie!” Jasper called from the shop door. “The old man’s looking for ya.”

“Serena . . .” She glanced over at Jasper, who clearly was going to wait until he had accomplished the task Mr. Pressman had given him. Why he picked this task, of all the tasks he was asked to perform to see through to the end, she’d never know, but there he was. A look—of impatience, interest, or hope that he would overhear some juicy gossip to repeat later in the pub—crossed his face as he watched her intently. It was clear that he wasn’t leaving until his mission was a success and he returned with her in tow. “Look, I gotta go. I’ll call l. . .