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“She is.” Alexander hesitated. “Miss Doyle, would you be good enough to remove your bonnet?”

“Of course, my lord.”

Jonas raised a questioning eyebrow at his friend, but Alexander gave an impatient shake of his head and kept his eyes on Miss Doyle as she untied her ribbons and lowered her bonnet to her side.

“It’s unbelievable,” Alexander muttered. “Absolutely unbelievable.”

“What is?” Jonas considered it highly unlikely that Alexander needed so solid a reminder of Miss Doyle’s beauty. What was the man about?

“Miss Doyle, do you recall that when we were first introduced, I asked if we’d met before?”

“Yes, my lord. We concluded that perhaps you’d seen me when you stopped at the inn on your way to Langton House.”

“We did,” Alexander said. “But I no longer believe that’s true.” He turned and started walking toward the fireplace. “May I show you something?”

“Yes, my lord.” Miss Doyle followed after him, and feeling as perplexed as she looked, Jonas brought up the rear.

Alexander pointed to a portrait hanging to the left of the mantelpiece. “This painting was done twenty-five years ago, soon after my uncle, Frederick Allerton, married his French fiancée, Isabella Brossard.”

Jonas frowned. Frederick and Isabella were the members of Alexander’s family who had drowned during the wrecking of the Alouette. Why was Alexander showing a portrait of his deceased relatives to Miss Doyle?

“My aunt Isabella would have been about your age at the time,” Alexander said.

Miss Doyle moved closer to view the painting. She gasped, instantly taking two stumbling steps away from the wall and backing directly into Jonas’s chest.

“Steady,” Jonas said, placing a supportive hand on her elbow.

“How . . . how is this possible?” she said.

Alexander ran his fingers through his hair. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

One look at Miss Doyle’s pale complexion told Jonas that if he removed his hand from her arm, she’d likely drop. What the deuce had Alexander done to frighten her so? “What are you talking about, Bloxley?”

“Take a look for yourself,” Alexander said, stepping aside to facilitate Jonas’s first view of the portrait.

A tall, sandy-haired man stood behind a woman seated on a maroon velvet chair. The woman’s chestnut hair was pinned to her head in an elaborate coiffeur, but a few soft waves fell around her attractive face—a face that was the mirror image of Miss Doyle’s.

Jonas’s grip on Miss Doyle’s elbow tightened.

“May I . . . may I take a seat?” she asked faintly.

Berating himself for being so unthinking, Jonas guided her to a chair.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Alexander said as she sat, “how old are you, Miss Doyle. And what is your birthdate?”

“I’m nineteen years of age,” she said, perching on the edge of the chair. “My birthdate is the sixteenth of August.”

The sixteenth of August. Jonas stood his ground, though shock hit him full in the stomach.

“Merciful heavens,” Alexander said.

Miss Doyle’s gaze darted between the two men. “Does that date mean something important?”

“To Lord Langton and me, it does,” Alexander said heavily. “That was the date the Alouette went aground off the coast of Little Tilbury. The very ship that Lord Langton’s father was likely killed trying to save and that my aunt, uncle, and two cousins were aboard when they were lost at sea.”

“There were two children also?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Alexander nodded. He took the chair opposite her. “Charles would have just turned four, and Suzanne was almost two.” He paused to allow that information to sink in. “Had she survived, Suzanne would be about your age.”