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“A position in a house far from here. I do not mind where it is, so long as it is enough distant that neither my father nor Mr. Cummings will find me.” She paused. “I have no references, but I can turn my hand to most anything a housemaid or kitchen maid would do.”

“Or a nurse,” he added.

She shifted slightly and lowered her head so he could no longer see her face. “I was glad to hear you had recovered so well from your wounds.”

“I believe my outlook was precarious for a few days, but I, too, am grateful to be on this end of it.”

She nodded but remained silent.

“I will go to London and make enquiries for you,” he said.

Instantly, her head rose again. “Thank you, Reynard.” Her voice rang with hope, and he felt unexpectedly determined to not let her down.

“It may be a few days before I return,” he warned.

“I understand.” She untied the ribbons beneath her chin and took off her bonnet. Then, taking something from around her neck, she slipped it over her head. “I have no money to offer you,” she said, “but take this. It will help pay your way.” She extended her arm and dropped the item into his hand.

“What is this?” Jonas turned his hand so the moonlight reflected off the gold disk and chain.

“A pendant. My mother gave it to me on her deathbed.”

Like wraiths, ugly and unwanted suspicions swirled between them. “And you are only now using it to buy your freedom? I thought your mother died years ago.”

“Two years,” she said. “And the pendant has remained in its hiding place until now.”

“Why?”

“Because it never felt mine.” Her eyes met his, and even in the darkness, he could tell how difficult this was for her. “I don’t know how it came to be in my mother’s keeping. Until the day she passed, I honestly believed that she’d never actively participated in smuggling, but then she gave me this.” Miss Doyle’s swollen lip quivered. “Although I can never return it to its rightful owner, I can prevent it from falling into the hands of the evil leaders of the Lamhurst Gang and use it to remove myself from their grasp.”

“And yet, you have given it to me. Someone you know as a smuggler working with that very gang.”

She took a few steps back, then hesitated as though waiting for reassurance. He stayed in the shadows, watching her, knowing full well that she could not see his expression.

“I . . . I am a fool,” she said, her voice catching on the last word. She turned on her heel.

“Miss Doyle,” he said as she started to go. He reached for her hand. It was trembling. She tried to pull it away, but he kept it in his grasp. “You are no fool.”

“What then?” she said. Tears were forming in her eyes. “Naïve? Gullible?”

“Brave,” he said. “Daring, strong, honorable.” She had stopped tugging at his grasp. “Do you wish me to go on?”

“Will you betray me to the Lamhurst Gang?”

“I will not.”

There must have been enough conviction in his voice to make him believable because her small fingers relaxed against his palm.

“Why?” she asked.

He released her hand, grateful that she did not immediately move away. She had put her trust in him. It was time he reciprocated. At least in part.

“I am not who you think I am.”

He heard her breath catch. “You are not Reynard?”

“Oh, I am Reynard, all right. I am the same man who helped unload boats on the beach at Little Tilbury and ended up in your hidden room with a bullet wound in his arm. But I am no smuggler.”

“You just admitted to unloading smuggled goods.”