In a devious way, a girl's energetic, lacking a start (9)
I believe the answer is:
evasively
'in' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adverbs. Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'a devious way a girl's energetic lacking a start' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'a' is within the answer.
'way' could be 's' (Compass direction - South) and 's' is located in the answer.
'girl' could be 'viv' (short for Vivienne) and 'viv' is present in the remaining letters.
The remaining letters 'eely' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for evasively that I've seen before include "In a devious manner" , "So as to avoid the point" .)