Escaped lunatics, lost children, vengeful lords, and love. Really, the situation is becoming quite impossible. Seventeen-year-old Lady Claire Trevelyan, left alone after the Arabian Bubble financial disaster claims home and family, now leads the cleverest gang in the London underworld. Between outwitting a rival gang, inventing a device that will net her and her scientist employer worldwide fame, and keeping her mother from marrying her off, she can almost forget that a powerful lord wants to get closer ... and if he succeeds, can destroy it all with a single word ...