She reached for her pocket, for the pencil and miniature notebook she always carried, before realizing she was in an evening gown. “Dash it.” And she’d almost kneeled down there in the road to better inspect the blooms too.

Where was Bram to shout at her when she needed him? She relied on her brother to remind her of what she was wearing on such occasions. Her lips quirked up at the thought.

“You’re late, Elizabeth.”

She jumped, spun, and collided with a solid figure. A solid figure who shoved her unceremoniously back around to face the jasmine, holding her in place with iron grips on both her upper arms.

“Don’t be a fool. You know the rules. Eyes forward.”

To keep from seeing him? A shiver coursed through her, her eyes darting every which way in search of help. She could scream. There were undoubtedly people around within earshot.

But at the moment, he presented no threat. Unless one counted the way his fingers dug painfully into her arm.

“I’m not Elizabeth Tremayne.”

Mabena would probably kick her for saying so. But she didn’t know whatever rules this man thought she did, and she had a bad feeling she could pay for that ignorance.

He snorted an unamused laugh, and he was standing so close that the gust of his breath collided with her hair.

He was tall, then. She stood at five-six without shoes, and if one factored in the heels of her slippers and the height of the curls Mabena had fashioned with too much care, for his nose to be right there, he had to be at least six foot. Perhaps closer to six-two.

“Nice try,” he muttered into her hair. “But I’ve seen no other pretty blondes walking from the garrison cottage to the Wights’ this evening at the precise time we were to meet. Elizabeth.”

Think, Libby. Think. Her stomach felt so sick she’d have liked to curl into a ball. Why would Beth Tremayne have arranged a meeting with whomever this was? She didn’t know, couldn’t know, and didn’t have enough information to pretend she did. But he obviously wasn’t going to believe her claim of ignorance. “What do you want, exactly?”

“What game are you playing, girl?” His fingers bit harder. “Whatever it is, drop it before it gets someone else killed.”

Killed? Her breath tangled with itself in her throat, nearly choking her. The moon, newly risen even though the sun’s last light hadn’t yet been claimed by the sea, winked at her in the pane of the window of the jasmine’s building.