At four and twenty, Cleo Spencer could measure how far she had fallen in the world by entering Evershot’s Bank on Cornhill Street. No heads turned in the bank’s columned interior, vast as a ballroom. Instead, Tobias Meese, Evershot’s clerk, darted out of the hole he inhabited, intent on blocking her way.

She headed straight for the president’s office, surprised she had not worn a groove in the marble from the regularity of her visits. Once a quarter for nearly four years she had come begging for her own money, and the practice was wearing as thin as her cloak.

At sixteen she had had thick cloaks to burn. With green eyes and chestnut curls, she had entered her first ballroom and turned the heads of all the available gentlemen. Her partner for the second set, a dashing, red-coated lieutenant, had whispered, “You have dancing eyes,” and the compliment had, she supposed, set her on a reckless, giddy path to this moment.

Now she slipped past a group of bewhiskered gentlemen engaged in conversation, putting them between her and Meese and gaining a couple of yards on her adversary. Gold gleamed on the heads of their walking sticks and watch fobs and winked from the rings on their pinky fingers. They were men who could smell money in the air, hear its song in the wind, and see its glint on the horizon, and they shifted to let Cleo pass without so much as a glance.

Meese stopped her at the president’s door by the simple expedient of stepping on her hem. Flounce parted from skirts with a distinct rip.

“Miss Spencer, Mr. E. is in a meeting.”

Cleo summoned her haughtiest look. “Impossible, Meese, he has an appointment with me at this hour.”

Meese pinned her in place with his foot, an oily gleam in his eye, three wiry hairs bristling under his lip. “For a consideration, Miss Spencer, I can show you to an antechamber, where you can wait private-like.” He rather emphasized the word wait.

Cleo lifted her chin. She would step out of her skirts before she gave Meese a penny. Her fragile hem parted another inch, and she considered braining Meese with her reticule, heavy with a half dozen precious potatoes from her neighbor Farmer Davies. Reason prevailed. It would be a shame to sacrifice the potatoes.

Smiling, she held up her bag. “Let me see, Meese. I may have something for you.”

Meese extended an ink-stained hand and stepped back to allow her to reach into the bag.

The instant he removed his foot from her hem, Cleo grabbed the knob and sung the door open on an empty office.