A few helpful degrees. Her gaze flew to the windowpane, and now she could see herself in partial profile—and at least a bit of the man behind her.

Tall, yes. Thin. He wore the garb of a typical tourist—pullover cardigan, white collar beneath it, straw boater in a light shade. Hair dark enough that it blended with the night-heavy glass, and features too much in shadow to be discernible, other than a long, patrician nose.

Enough, perhaps, that she would recognize him if she saw him again.

He shoved her into the fence and its heady bouquet. “Count to thirty before you so much as think about turning around.”

He was gone, the release of her arms and the pounding of his steps tripping over each other in her awareness. She indulged in a whimper into the white trumpets, rotating her aching shoulders until convinced he’d not done permanent damage.

She didn’t count. But she did wait until the last of his footfalls had faded from her hearing before she pushed herself away from the fence. Her shoes were probably dirty now, for which Mabena would scold her. Worse, her hands were shaking.

She stepped back onto the road and turned toward her cottage. Never mind the dinner party and Lottie Wight and viscounts and—wait.

“I’ve seen no other pretty blondes walking from the garrison cottage to the Wights’ this evening.”

Had Beth been planning to go to the Wights’? How, when Lottie said she’d never met her? Or was she lying—was she somehow involved in this too?

That couldn’t be, could it?

She spun to her original path. None of this made any sense. But if she meant to answer that question, she couldn’t do it from home, with Mabena and Oliver and comfort. She had to go where that man knew she was going. Where he thought Beth was going. And try to determine why.

Music spilled out into the night long before she neared the cluster of cottages the Wights had let. They must have a gramophone playing as loudly as it would go. Or not, she saw as she drew near enough to see the paper lanterns strung between the cottages and the area set up between. They’d hired a quartet, either from somewhere on the islands or brought over on the ferry.

And it wasn’t just the Wights and the two gentlemen Lottie had mentioned laughing and tilting champagne flutes toward their mouths and milling around a makeshift dance floor. There were well over a dozen people crowding the small space, not counting the quartet or the uniformed servants.

She spun away. Forget trying to answer questions, she had no hope of that anyway. She’d go home. Tell Mabena and Oliver about the tall man who’d attacked her and—

“Beth!”

She froze when a hand landed on her sore shoulder, even though it was small and gentle. Turned.