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king!
    The swell of the crowd pushed her back as His Majesty’s party drew nearer, but Nell resisted, remaining close enough to the front of the crowd to see fine quilted silk coats, jewels, heeled shoes, and plumed hats approach her. Women in bright scarlet, emerald, and sapphire, all of them laughing and glittering like jewels in the sunlight; most prominent among them was a striking golden-haired woman. She breezed past Nell in a swirl of champagne-colored velvet, bell sleeves edged with fur and studded with tiny pearls. Her rosewater perfume held the air for an instant and then, as she did, faded into a rumble of excited chatter and gossip.
    The woman was his mistress, without a doubt.
    She was grand and breathtaking.
    And then, finally, Nell caught a glimpse of him in a coat of lavish emerald brocade and wearing a shining onyx-colored periwig. He was surrounded by others, but he was taller and more magnificent. Yet there was something more; he looked, in that brief instant as he passed her, familiar. Impossible, she thought as the royal party rounded the corner and began their ascent of the staircase that led to the king’s box. She had never been closer to Whitehall Palace than Charing Cross.
    After they had gone, the crowd dispersed, returning to their places in the pit. The spectacular moment vanished. But throughout the play, Nell could not stop herself from gazing up at the royal box from the dark of the alcove shadows, hiding her beneath the gallery. How could the king of England seem familiar?
     

    He watched her with interest from behind the side curtain, the length of velvet tightly in his hand as she stood in the shadows, gazing up at the king. New blood, he thought with a smile. But he would need to tread cautiously. His reputation would likely precede him.
    “Mr. Hart!” a voice called. “Five minutes until you’re onstage, sir!”
    “Thank you, Bell,” he replied, using his best verbal flourish, the one that had made him a star.
     

    By the end of November, Nell had developed a regular following of customers. They bought her fruit, tipped her handsomely, and engaged her in the witty banter at which she excelled well above the other girls. They found her funny without being boorish, flirtatious without being crude, and the men loved it. One of her most ardent customers, one who always bought the quince pies, was Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst.
    Buckhurst was kind, handsome and, since her very first day, an exceedingly generous tipper, often giving her more on the side than what he paid for her fare. “If it isn’t lovely Nell!” he called out to her early one Saturday afternoon as people were clambering around her for seats.
    As always, it was a pushing, shoving maelstrom for places on the pit benches.
    Nell spun around, knowing the voice now. He seemed, she thought, a friend. “Your Lordship’s usual?”
    “Am I really so predictable?” he sighed dramatically.
    “Afraid so.”
    “Have I nothing then at all of the mystery to challenge you?”
    Her robust laugh was as distinctive as it was endearing. “Certainly a fine, high manner, Lord Buckhurst. But mystery, with you, I’m afraid, is in short supply.”
    “Oh, you wound me!” He pressed his hands to his chest in a gesture befitting one of the actors they were about to see onstage.
    “An orange girl could do no such thing to a man of consequence.”
    “She could if her name was Nell Gwynne!” he parried as she simultaneously sold one orange each to two plain-faced women standing before her, hands extended. “And trust me, Nell, I am worth far less consequence than it may seem.”
    “Lord Buckhurst!” one of the women sniffed. “Pray, do not tell me a man of your stature would tarry with an orange wench!”
    Buckhurst glanced at Nell. He was wearing his endearing grin. “I’d not dream of it, Lady Penelope. But then there is little I would dream of telling you. Our conversations have always been something more of a nightmare