The Perfect Royal Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page A

reopened amid a sudden autumn cold so frigid that it froze the Thames. Notices were posted, and handbills were given out announcing that the king’s players would be performing Thomas Killigrew’s own play Siege of Urban. Admittance to the pit would be free of charge by His Majesty’s command. It was said the sovereign hoped to bring a bit of joy to his beleaguered subjects with a rousing comedy.
    Nell stood outside the theater in the cool gray air, a basket of plump oranges at her elbow. She was wearing an olive-green dress. It was almost new, even a bit stylish, with an attached, ruched, pannier skirt made of pink floral cotton to the middle of her calves, and puffed half sleeves. It had been offered to her by one of the other orange girls for ten pence. It had been almost a month, yet Nell still could not quite believe her sudden and mysterious good fortune.
    The dress was only the smallest part of that.
    The memory of waking with a great start, hearing the door handle click. Casting off her blanket, she had fumbled for the long wooden stick she kept beneath the mattress for the nights when Helena Gwynne brought home more than a hangover. But it was not Helena. It was Rose. Rose! Standing in the pale light cast from the corridor, looking like a ghost and an angel at the same time. Rose, who was meant to die in the Newgate gaol. It had been a miracle. But her sister had come back changed, weakened by the ordeal. She had a stubborn cough now, and her face was no longer that of a girl, but of a hardened young woman. Nell was committed to caring for Rose forever now that she was back, and helping her recover her health, no matter what it took.
    “Well, don’t you look fine today,” Orange Moll proclaimed.
    The declaration brought Nell back to the front of the theater, where a throng of people was pushing past her to get in. Orange Moll stood before her in the cold, gray noonday, a blue shawl closed over her swelling bosom, and a large basket brimming with fruit slung over her own arm and resting against her ample hip.
    “I’ve a new dress,” Nell smiled.
    “So I see. And ’tis a stroke of good fortune, too. I’ve lost one of my best inside girls. Just this mornin’, in fact. Ran off to marry a linkboy, a pox on ’em both!” She shook her head. Her hair was dark and frizzled, hanging onto her shoulders. Her eyes were shrewd, her face wrinkled and painted. “She needs replacin’, and in your new dress you ’appen to fit the part. If you’d fancy a turn at it, that is.”
    An inside girl. Their baskets were full, not just with oranges, but a bounty of delectable lemons, apples, and sweetmeats. They were the clever ones who bantered with the theatergoers, the girls who made the real tips, the girls who glimpsed the other side of London life. Money. Dresses. Jewelry.
    “Oh, yes! Yes, if you please!”
    Nell’s open smile made Moll flinch. Her expression was suddenly full of warning. “Now, ye’ll ’ave to learn quick if you mean to make a proper livin’ at it. Banter with the patrons, and a little flirtation comes to no ’arm. The more they fancy you, the more they buy, and the better they tip. Just never let me see ye cross the line. Not at least in a public way. What ye do on your own time’s your own business, but ’ere at the king’s house I’ve a reputation to maintain.”
    Nell caught her breath. “I understand.”
    Since Rose had found her way out of the Newgate gaol, they had been achingly careful with their precious windfall. Now, perhaps they could think of a larger room, something with a bed big enough for both of them.
    Orange Moll, whose real name was Mary Meggs, took Nell’s basket of oranges and replaced it with her own full, lush basket. “Ye’ll be workin’ the pit. ’Tis no fine walk in the park, I’ll warn ye. The lot of ’em can be loud and boorish, and the fops won’t want to give ye the time o’ day for the attention it takes from them. Those pretty little boys, with