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shouting.
    Curiosity and a strange sense of urgency propelled Gideon closer; the fluttering of a tattered skirt told him the captive was a woman. A small woman.
    “Here now, what is this?” he demanded in his barrister voice.
    “ This wench tried to steal my watch !” the enormous man roared indignantly. The girl continued to twist so violently in the man’s grasp that her face was a blur, but the man obviously had manacles for hands; she couldn’t free herself. Finally she stopped thrashing, panting desperately, and her eyes flicked toward Gideon.
    Good God! Those eyes . It was the girl who had tried to steal his watch the day before. “You really ought to give this up,” he told her dryly. “Clearly you aren’t any good at it.”
    She merely scowled at him and kicked out at her captor, whose nether regions, unfortunately for her, were protected by great rolls of flesh. The enormous man effortlessly held her at a safe distance from his person and gave her a hard shake, like a terrier with a rat in its jaws.
    Fury warped the air in front of Gideon’s eyes. She might be a thief, but the man dwarfed her, and he was deliberately hurting her now. “Let her go,” he heard himself say. “She won’t do it again.”
    “Let her go ?” The man was aghast. “I will not! My grandfather’s watch! The little pestilence belongs in Newgate! I’ve a mind to take her straight there.”
    “I sympathize, but surely—”
    “She needs to be taught a lesson!” the man bellowed, freshly enraged. He shook the girl again. Her head snapped forward and back, like the head on a doll.
    The metallic tang of rage burned the back of Gideon’s throat, crawled over his skin on cold spiky legs, tightened his lungs until his breath came shallow. Oh, a clean fist to the jaw would take this beast down easily.
    But he didn’t do that sort of thing anymore.
    “Five pounds if you release her,” he said quietly instead, his voice a deadly thing.
    The man suddenly went still, surprised by the offer; his fist remained securely wrapped around the girl’s arm. She gave a token twist, but winced the moment she did.
    Gideon couldn’t bear it.
    “No, sir,” the large man reiterated. “I don’t know what you want with her, but she’s going to prison, if I have any say in it.”
    “Ten pounds.”
    “Not for any price, sir.”
    “Not for thirty pounds?”
    A loaded silence fell over the strange little trio. The enormous man studied Gideon curiously for a moment. Say no , Gideon thought. Ignore my insanity, and I’ll be on my way .
    “Show it to me,” the man demanded instead.
    Gideon looked at the girl. Her entire body heaved with her breathing; her eyes fluttered closed. The flesh of her thin arm, covered in the worn cloth of her dress, bulged between the man’s huge fingers.
    Slowly, as if in a dream, Gideon pulled the precious thirty pounds from his pocket.
    The enormous man snatched it and pushed the girl at Gideon.
    “Enjoy your prize, sir.” He stalked off.
     
     
    When Kilmartin opened the door to his lodgings, he found a thunderous-looking Gideon Cole clutching a filthy scrap of a girl by the arm.
    “Congratulate me, Kilmartin. I seem to have purchased a pickpocket.”
    “What on—what have you—” Kilmartin spluttered as Gideon pushed past him into the house, dragging the girl along with him.
    Gideon pushed the pickpocket firmly into one of his friend’s sitting room chairs. “Don’t move a hair,” he commanded her. She glared back at him sullenly, but remained perfectly still, apart from the rapid rise and fall of her breathing. Her chin went up; her spine stiffened. Proud for a thief .
    “Yes, for thirty pounds.” Gideon turned to Kilmartin and gave a short, near-hysterical laugh. “She tried to steal a watch from a huge fellow, who planned to turn her over to the authorities, and so I gave him thirty pounds to turn her over to me instead. And —you’ll enjoy this part, Kilmartin—she’s the very wench who