Rose Campion sighed with pleasure and leaned back in her seat as the crimson stage curtains swept closed with a satisfying swish. The house lights came up, making her blink. Then the chandeliers high above the auditorium sprang back into life, shivering and sparkling like great upside-down wedding cakes, winking with crystals and brightly coloured glass. The audience began to clap, the noise and lights propelling Rose back into the real world, so that the play suddenly seemed like a fading dream slipping beyond her grasp.

“They liked it,” exclaimed Aurora, turning excitedly to Effie and Rose.

“Wrong,” said Rose. “They loved it – just look at them.”

Rose was right. Every single plush red velvet seat in the Pall Mall Theatre had been sold, and every seat was now empty – the glittering first-night crowd had risen to their feet to acknowledge Edward’s performance as Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Even the most refined society ladies, their swan-like necks encircled by pearls and emeralds, were standing to applaud. Rose looked around the audience, all rich, modish and lustrous, as if somebody had given them all an extra polish before they came out for the evening, and thought how removed the Pall Mall was from her beloved Campion’s Palace of Varieties and Wonders. It was a different world. The audience at Campion’s music hall, on the wrong side of the river in Southwark, was frequently ragged and rowdy, but they always responded straight from the heart. The poised and self-conscious Pall Mall crowd seemed to be performing a role, taking their cues from each other and glancing around anxiously to check that they were doing the right thing. A first night at the Pall Mall was clearly not just about seeing a play – it was about being seen.

“He really was good, wasn’t he?” said Aurora, a touch of anxiety creeping into her voice as her father took yet another solo bow. “They’re not just clapping because Edward’s got a title and his rags-to-riches story is so romantic?”

Rose squeezed Aurora’s hand. “Of course not,” she said. “They’re clapping because he’s a great actor.”

Which he was, thought Rose – but the fact that Edward Frederick Dorset Easingford was also the new Lord Easingford was certainly not going to be a hindrance at the box office. The production had been the talk of London society as soon as it was announced. The theatre was stuffed with dukes and duchesses – most of them, Rose suspected, entirely indifferent to Shakespeare. She wished that Thomas, owner of Campion’s music hall, and the man who had found her and Aurora abandoned together on his doorstep when they were just babies, was here tonight. Thomas adored Shakespeare. She also knew that the pretensions of the first-night Pall Mall crowd would have made him laugh. But although he’d had a ticket to join them, he was needed at Campion’s, where the Illustrious Gandini, the stage magician known as the Great Wizard of the North, was performing later that evening and would be drawing big crowds. You didn’t turn down the Great Wizard of the North when he said he wanted to perform at your music hall, even if it was with just a few days’ notice.

Since he had appeared like a rabbit out of a hat just three months earlier, way down the bill at a modest music hall in the suburbs, Gandini had swiftly acquired a reputation for eccentricity. He was in huge demand in halls all across London – a demand that was fuelled by the fact that Gandini turned most offers down. Some said that he came from Italy, where he was known for the infamous bullet-catch trick in which he caught a bullet fired from a gun between his teeth. Others swore that they had seen him in Paris, where he had successfully performed the Indian rope trick. Still more said that he had been spotted in San Francisco. The approach from Gandini, asking to play Campion’s tonight, had only been made five days ago, and announced the day after that. There had been hints that if Thomas was accommodating, the Illustrious Gandini might consider a longer run at Campion’s. It would be a real coup – if a small hall like Campion’s could attract such top-of-the-bill acts, when there was such stiff competition from the bigger, more glamorous West End halls, its future would be secure.

“Oh, Rory,” sighed Effie. “Yer dad was perfect. I’ve never seen anyone die so beautifully.”

Except for Thomas, who she held in awe, Effie shortened almost everyone’s name. Rory had stuck. It suited Aurora, particularly since she had been dressing as a boy to perform the bicycle act she did with Rose. But her pleasure in the nickname ran deeper: Aurora had grown up friendless and unloved, and was delighted to have friends close enough to affectionately shorten her name.

“Yer dad was like a real prince. And it were just like his story, weren’t it? That Claudius gaffer was a real smug piece of work. He was like Ed’s wicked uncle, who tried to diddle ’im out of the title and them big houses. I wanted to rush up on to the stage and give ’im a right good talking to.”

Rose suppressed a smile. She wondered how the Pall Mall audience would have responded if little Effie, with her sweet, heart-shaped face, untidy ditchwater-blonde hair and eyes that gleamed like moonstones, had dared to do such a thing. She loved the way Effie always said what she thought, and her enduring cheerfulness in the face of adversity: Effie’s mum, Iris, was still lingering in Holloway Prison, where she was sick with consumption. Thomas and his lawyer, Mr Cherryble, had been trying to get Effie a visit to see her mother. Edward and his lawyers had been helping too, but so far in vain.

“Come on,” said Aurora. “Let’s go backstage to see Edward. He’ll be expecting us.” The girls pushed their way through the crowd, who blithely blocked exits as they stood chatting, swooping down on each other like shimmering birds and crying out in delight.

“Lady Fitzcillian! Georgiana! What a delight to see you here. How exquisite you look tonight,” said a man in a voice that boomed louder than Big Ben. “Her Ladyship and I have booked a private room at the Ritz for a party to partake of a little champagne supper. Will you join us?”

“I would love to have joined you, dear Lord Cox, but I’m invited to the Café Royal with His Grace and his party.”

There were more greetings going on around them so for a moment their way was blocked again.

Rose grinned wickedly. She tossed her unruly conker-coloured curls and grabbed Aurora’s hand, bowed low, kissed it and declared in her best Southwark drawl, “My dear Lady Easingford! You look so delicious in that blue crêpe de Chine I could gobble you up. Would you join us for pie and mash and a cuppa?”

Effie squawked with laughter so loudly that people turned and tutted, but although Aurora grinned, Rose could see the flush rising on her friend’s creamy skin, and she wished she hadn’t played the fool in public. She knew that Aurora was sensitive to her still new, and unexpected, status as the lost daughter of a lord, caught in the nether land between the world of Campion’s and polite society, and feeling as if she no longer quite belonged in either.

Rory’s face blushed pinker still as somebody whispered loudly, “Isn’t that the Easingford girl? Aurora? Such behaviour!” Another woman, with a mouth puckered as if she had just drunk a quart of vinegar, raised her lorgnette to peer at Aurora more closely. The murmured words “dresses as a boy in a music hall act” rose like vicious little balloons from the tight gaggle of women, and there were some shocked gasps of delighted outrage. Then another whispered loudly, “They say Edward Easingford has been seen losing badly at the card tables. Maybe his daughter could support him doing her music hall turn if he runs through the Easingford fortune?”

There was malicious laughter. The women made Rose think of the geese she had spotted on the muddy banks of the Thames down by London Bridge, pecking at each other viciously if any weakness was spotted. Seeing Aurora’s face, so undefended and full of hurt, Rose reached for her friend’s gloved hand, squeezed it hard and pulled her through the throng with Effie following.

They reached the top of the stairs. A tall man sporting an elaborate waxed handlebar moustache and a jolly peacock-blue waistcoat, and holding a glass of brandy in his hand, was standing amid a small group of men. He was talking a little too animatedly as if trying to keep their interest. It was obvious that he was boring his companions, who one by one were slipping away. Rose felt sorry for him. She liked his bright peacock waistcoat, which looked like a gaudy costume that might be worn by an actor upon the Campion’s stage, and didn’t think that anyone who wore such evening clothes could possibly be dull. The waistcoat marked him out as different, and as two of the group passed, Rose heard one murmur to the other, “Interesting chap and filthy rich, of course, but in trade, and it shows. Did you see that waistcoat! Not the thing at all.” She glanced back and caught the eye of the owner of the waistcoat, and his rueful smile suggested that he too had heard what had been said about him. He winked at Rose and then turned to the bar to get himself another drink.

Rose and the others leaned against...