I looked down at my old dungarees and sweater. “I’ll need to change.”

By the time I was ready, Finn was standing in the open doorway, tapping his boot as he stared out at the street. He looked back over one lean shoulder as he heard the clack of my heels, and not just one but both of those straight black brows rose. I didn’t mistake it for admiration. The ensemble was the only clean change of clothes I had in my traveling case, and it made me look like a china shepherdess: a fluffy white skirt over layers and layers of crinoline; pink hat with a half veil; spotless gloves; and a tight pink jacket that would have molded to every curve, if I’d had a single curve to mold to. I lifted my chin and flicked the silly veil down over my eyes. “It’s one of the international banks,” I said, and handed him an address. “Thank you.”

“Lasses in that many petticoats don’t usually bother thanking the driver,” Finn advised, holding the door open so I could walk under his arm and outside. Even in heels, I cleared his elbow without needing to duck.

Eve’s voice came from the end of the hall as I reached to close the door. “You bat-blind bloody French cow, don’t you dare hang up on me . . .”

I hesitated, wanting to ask her why she was helping me. She’d been dead set against it last night. But I didn’t press for details yet, for all that I wanted to shake her bony shoulders till she coughed up what she knew. I didn’t dare anger her or put her off, because she knew something. Of that I was certain.

So I left her to it and followed Finn outside. The car surprised me: a dark blue convertible with the top pulled up, old, but buffed shiny as a new dime. “Nice wheels. Eve’s?”

“Mine.” The car didn’t match his disreputable stubble and patched elbows.

“What is it, a Bentley?” My father had a Ford, but he liked English cars, and he was always pointing them out whenever we came to Europe.

“A Lagonda LG6.” Finn opened the door for me. “Hop in, miss.”

I smiled as he took his seat behind the wheel and reached for the gearshift half buried in my spreading skirts. It was rather nice to be among strangers who didn’t know my soiled recent history. I liked looking into someone’s eyes and seeing myself reflected as someone who deserved a respectful miss. All I’d seen when I looked into my parents’ eyes the past few weeks was whore—disappointment—failure.

You are a failure, my nasty inner voice whispered, but I pushed it away, hard.

London went by in a blur; gray, cobblestoned, still showing rubble, cracked roofs, and bites taken out of seemingly whole walls. All from the war, and yet it was 1947. I remember my father exhaling contentedly over the newspapers after V-E Day, saying, “Excellent, now it can all go back to the way it was.” As if roofs and buildings and shattered windows just leaped back into wholeness the day after peace was declared.

Finn negotiated the Lagonda through a street so badly holed it looked like a piece of Swiss cheese, and a thought made me look at him curiously. “Why does Eve even need a car? With gas as short as it is, wouldn’t it be easier to get around by tram?”

“She doesn’t do well with trams.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Trams, confined spaces, crowds—they set her off. She nearly blew up like a grenade last time she took a tram. Shouting and throwing elbows at all those housewives with their shopping.”

I shook my head, wondering, and with a rumble the Lagonda pulled up before the imposing marble-fronted bank that was my destination. My face must have betrayed my nervousness because Finn said rather gently, “Want an escort, miss?”

I did, but a lurking Scotsman who needed a shave wasn’t going to make me look any more respectable, so I shook my head as I swung out of the car. “Thank you.”

I tried to summon some of my mother’s effortless sashay as I crossed the polished marble floor inside the bank. I gave my name and my business, and soon I was being shown into the office of a grandfatherly type in houndstooth check. He glanced up from a chart on which he was scribbling figures. “May I be of assistance, young lady?”

“I hope so, sir.” I smiled, marshaled a little small talk. “What’s that you’re working on?” Indicating his chart and its column of numbers.

“Percentages, figures. Quite dull.” He rose, indicating a chair. “Do sit down.”

“Thank you.” I sat, took a breath under my half veil. “I would like to withdraw some money, please.”

My American grandmother had settled a trust fund on me when she died. Not massive, but a good bit, and I’d been conscientiously adding to it since I was fourteen and got my first summer job in my father’s office. I’d never touched the account; I had an allowance for college and that was all I needed. I normally left the passbook tucked into my dresser drawer under my unmentionables, but I’d tossed it into my traveling case at the last minute when packing for the ocean liner. That same part of me that had packed Eve’s address, and the report about Rose’s last whereabouts. Not laying plans, exactly, but listening to the little voice that whispered, You might need these, if you get up the nerve to do what you really want to do . . .

I was glad I’d listened to that voice and included the passbook, because I was flat out of cash. I had no idea why Eve had decided to help me, but I didn’t think it was from goodness of heart. I’d cross her palm with silver if that was what it took, and the palm of anyone else who might lead me to Rose, but for that I needed the silver. So I presented my passbook and identification, and smiled at the banker.

Within ten minutes, I was holding that smile in place only by sheer force of will. “I don’t understand,” I said for at least the fourth time. “You have proof of my name and age, and there are clearly sufficient funds in the account. So why—”

“Parting with such a large sum, young lady, is not generally done. Such accounts are held to be in trust for your future.”

“But it’s not just in trust for my future. My own savings are in there—”

“Perhaps if we could speak with your father?”

“He is in New York. And it’s not such a large amount—”

The banker interrupted me again. “A telephone number for your father’s office will suffice. If we might speak to him, to gain his consent—”

I interrupted him this time. “You don’t need my father’s consent. It’s my name on the account. It was arranged that I would have access to it when I turned eighteen, and I’m nineteen.” Pushing my cards at him again. “You don’t need anyone’s consent but mine.”

The banker shifted a bit in his leather chair, but the grandfatherly expression never wavered. “I assure you that something can be arranged if we can just speak with your father.”

My teeth gritted as if they had fused. “I would like to make a withdrawal of—”

“I’m sorry, young lady.”