I swallow, thickly, and choose option three. “That would be so lovely!” I smile, all teeth, and shiver for dramatic effect. “It’s only that”—I wave at The Octagon—“I’m meant to be attending a meeting. My brother comes here for university and thought I would find the group . . . enlightening.”
Coney’s brown eyes drift over my frame. “And he pointed you here, to The Octagon?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Interesting you should say that.”
“Oh?”
He gives the umbrella a little shake. “It’s where I’m heading too. Please, let me escort you.”
The idea of having Professor Ian Coney at my back sounds less enticing than bathing in a pit of poisonous snakes. I hold my breath, keeping count of every step that brings me closer to learning of their plans to kill Saxon, all while praying that I won’t end up dead in the interim.
Coney steps to the side as I open the door, but instead of letting me through, he blocks my entrance with the closed umbrella. “I didn’t ask. What is your name?”
Rain soaks the earth, a cacophony that fills my ears as loudly as the blood thrumming in my temples. “Beth,” I lie smoothly, “Beth Linde.”
“You’ll need a password to proceed, Beth Linde.”
I stare at the clear, plastic brolly in front of me. It might as well be a broadsword, for all the good it does in appearing harmless. With the umbrella to my front and Coney at my back, I’m well and truly stuck. “A password?” I echo.
“Yes.”
Neither Peter nor Father Bootham mentioned anything about a password. Peter didn’t because he’d only overheard a few of the members while searching for a book at the university library. Father Bootham didn’t because that boy had been too blasted drunk to mention it to his mother.
Think off the cuff!
A bunch of loyalists who want Queen Margaret to keep her throne would use something related to the royal family, I’m sure of it. The possibilities are endless, and time is ticking down. I feel Coney’s breath on the back of my neck, and the rain seeping into my clothes, and my own heart threatening to fly from my chest.
Do it. Just say something!
“God save the queen.”
Coney laughs, like it’s all in good jest, and lifts the brolly blockade. “A lucky one, you are.” I nearly collapse against the door frame, I’m so surprised. It must register on my face because he taps my leg with the umbrella, good-naturedly. “Don’t look so startled, Miss Linde. Your brother didn’t set you up for failure, if that was your worry.”
It wasn’t at all.
Instead I’d been prepared to find a knife shoved into my back. One wrong move, one wrong word . . . I shiver, for real this time. “We would have had words, if he had.”
Coney throws his head back with a hearty chuckle. “In you go now. You’re completely drenched, you poor thing.”
Drenched, yes, but still alive—for now.
Thank God.
My footsteps echo off the herringbone-wood floor as I take in the selection of chairs all placed in a circle. There’s a hodgepodge of people seated, all men: university students wearing Queen Mary apparel, a few blokes who look to be around my age, and two older gentlemen. Whereas an orchestra filled the octagonal-shaped room just last year, excited chatter does now.
Coney grips my shoulder, driving me forward. “We have a newcomer, everyone.”
Seven pairs of eyes turn on me, and my stomach careens straight to the floor. Can they see that I’m the enemy? Do I have it scrawled, clear as day, across my forehead: I killed your beloved king.
I slip my left hand against my thigh, hoping to hide the rain-smudged words I jotted down earlier when talking to Father Bootham.
“She can take my chair,” says one of the uni boys, leaping up from his. “I’ll get another.”
I don’t want him to give up his seat. Bloody hell, I don’t want a single reason to look at these people as anything more than obstacles in dismantling the monarchy. To do otherwise would blur too many lines, and I fear they’ve blurred quite enough already.
“Thank you,” I murmur, purely out of good manners.
Like my own private tour guide, Coney leads me to the vacant chair and gestures for me to sit down.
His hand never leaves my shoulder.
Sitting, my calves come together as though a vine of fear has twined around them, keeping me fastened in place.
The last time I was here, I gawked in awe at the beauty of The Octagon. Cast-iron galleries on the first and second floors. A beautiful domed, glass roof. Intricate, cream-colored Victorian-era plasterwork. Thick columns arching high, toward the ceiling, and melding with the bowed walls to create small porticoes where the busts of literary greats observe all. Shakespeare. Chaucer. Byron.
Today, The Octagon’s elegance mocks me.
“Shall we start where we left off the other day?” Coney asks, still hovering behind me, so close that I can feel the fabric of his damp shirt against my back.
I take small comfort in the fact that Dad’s knife is tucked away in its usual spot.
One of the older men leans back in his chair, resting his ankle on his opposite knee. “We need to move soon. If we wait any longer, we’ll lose our edge.”
“Being cautious isn’t a drawback,” argues the boy who gave me his chair. With blondish-brown hair and a baby-face, he looks years younger than the hard gaze he levels on the others suggests. “We have only one chance to do this right. Going in half-cocked, just because we’re eager to put the damned bastard down, won’t do us any favors.”
The first man sits up in his seat. “What d’you know about strategy, Gregg? I have Army boots older than you.”
Next to him, a balding bloke nods. “You’re both right, yeah? The Priests are notorious, and their underground network isn’t something we should discount. They have manpower.”
“We have manpower,” Gregg spits, jabbing a finger at every individual seated in the circle. “I’ve no desire to sit back and let Saxon Priest get away with what he’s done. He’ll die, just like he did to the king, with a bullet in his chest. But we must plan.”
A lump grows in my throat, and the vines twine higher, around my thighs, my belly, until it feels like a struggle to breathe.
As if sensing my inner turmoil, Coney settles his free hand on my other shoulder. “Let’s hear from Beth, shall we?” His fingers squeeze, none too gently. “What do you think about our little problem with Saxon Priest, newcomer?” he asks, directing the question to me, though I can’t see him at all. “Should we make a move now and save ourselves the trouble of dealing with him, too, when we turn to his brothers?”
Turn to his . . . brothers?
Oh, God. Do they have plans to do away with all three of them?
Sweat blooms in my palms and words crash on my tongue. Smart. I need to play these next few seconds smart or it won’t be only Saxon’s head they want served on a silver platter. “I think . . .”
Before I can say more, Coney leans forward, his stomach grazing the back of my skull, which cants my head at an awkward angle. I wait, my breathing suspended, to see if it was a mistake that he’ll quickly rectify. Perhaps with an added apology for slipping and bumping into me.