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mounted the stairs. At the top he paused. His gaze was drawn to the first door on the right, which stood slightly ajar.
    He’d best look in on her, his uninvited houseguest. He was suddenly reminded of what Justin had said.
    Perhaps we should have Stokes stow away the valu ables. Indeed, perhaps we should lock our doors. We’ve a woman of the streets in the house, you know. She may well rob us blind and murder us in our beds by morning.
    He thought of the necklace the girl had gripped so tightly in her palm. It still warmed his pocket. Amaz ing that she’d held it throughout the ordeal; she must have been in considerable pain, and who knew how long she’d been injured before he discovered her? But then greed was a powerful incentive. He knew a costly piece when he saw it, and he sus pected this was the genuine article.
    His mouth thinned. She had a great deal to answer for, that much was certain.
    Almost before he was aware of it, he was standing over her. A frail sliver of moonbeam seeped in through the windowpanes, trickling over her form.
    What else was it Justin had said? That Sebastian had taken a fancy to her?
    Ludicrous.
    It was just as he’d told Justin. The chit was a thief. A pickpocket. God only knew what else! That so lit tle was known about the circumstances in which she’d been injured was troubling. As soon as she was able, it would have to be sorted out.
    His eyes drifted over her.
    One small hand, the hand that had clutched the necklace, lay curled against her chest. He’d carefully washed the mud and stench from her body and clad her in one of his sister’s night rails. Odd thing, but once she was clean, he’d had to remind himself she was a thief. A street urchin.
    Not that he’d ever encountered one in quite so in timate a fashion as he had this one. His lips quirked at the thought, then slipped away.
    Slowly his gaze slid over her. She slept, but rest lessly, it seemed. She’d kicked aside the covering he’d drawn over her. Her small mouth trembled slightly. Slender brows rose aslant above those ex traordinary eyes that reminded him of topaz.
    Respectability be damned! he thought.
    For a thieving woman of the streets, she was re markably fine. There was no denying her wild beauty and . . . God above, but he felt almost lascivious!
    Was it the pose? Or the woman herself? Beneath the fine lawn of the night rail, her skin glimmered in the firelight. The night rail lay bunched about her thighs, slender and white. Her legs shifted; a small hand moved to her chest, then dropped to one side. Her breasts rose and fell rhythmically, her nipples round coral disks that thrust out impudently.
    There was no hiding her frank sensuality. Sebas tian took a deep breath, aware of something totally unexpected tightening in his belly. It was hardly a gentlemanly thing to do ...But there was no with holding a lingering, intensely masculine admiration of the tawny mane that spilled across the pillow in silken chaos, gleaming like sunlit honey; of tender, well-shaped limbs, the velvet hollow of her belly. And...yes... oh, yes . . .
    Those glorious, glorious breasts.

Four
    t was the shiver of a presence that woke Devon. The unfamiliar cadence of a voice...a man’s voice, deep and cultured and melodious. Search ingly Devon turned her head toward the sound. Her body shifted.
    “Easy, now,” said the voice. “You’ve been hurt.”
    Hurt, her mind echoed vaguely. A strange still ness seemed to drift in her head, abruptly snared by memory. A shudder tore through her. She saw Harry and Freddie, circling like vultures. She re membered falling, hurtling into a black void where there was nothing but cold, seeping through, clear to her very bones...she’d been cold before, but not like that. Never like that! And there had been the terrifying fear that no one would hear. That she would lie there and die, like Mama, in the cold and the dark...
    But she wasn’t cold now, she realized. There was a dull ache in her side, but