(That explained the headline of one of Clive’s pieces from the aftermath, ‘LUCKY NICK,’ SAYS TRICKY PRICK.)

You could pinpoint the second the news broke, even before the lead commentator’s sharp intake of breath. Nick and I had emerged from signing the register behind the altar when, amid the choir’s gorgeous elegy to our love, a light murmur started to creep through the Abbey.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the commentator said, “we’ve received word of the most astonishing story…”

As I curtsied to the Queen, you could see from above how many people had ignored the directive to switch off their cell phones. Their screens lit up one after the other, sweeping like fire all the way down the pews of the church, apace with the realization I remembered washing over me with every step toward the Abbey door: Clive had called our bluff. Or maybe we’d called his.

Reflexively, I hit mute to see, rather than hear, the next part. Incredibly, our veneer never visibly faltered. If you had somehow missed the headline OPEN-DOOR DUCHESS: BEX SCANDAL BLINDSIDES BUCKINGHAM, or slept on the Mirror’s poetic FREDDIE NICKS NICK’S BRIDE, then you’d have assumed our happy ending was delivered on schedule. The newly minted duke and duchess, who seemed a lifetime removed from me and Nick even though it had been only about six weeks, emerged into the soundless streets of London as if nothing were the matter. We waved. We held hands. As we climbed into the carriage and began the journey to Buckingham Palace through what were meant to be adoring crowds, Nick even held mine aloft and kissed it. He had suffered the most in all this and yet he’d been the perfect gentleman. As a silent film, it was flawless.

But with the sound on…

Nick poked his head into the bedroom, and I stabbed at the pause button. “Ready yet? I’ve got the picnic packed.” He studied my face. “You look pale. Are you feeling all right?”

“Nothing a little vitamin D won’t fix,” I said, smiling as brightly as I could. “I’m finishing up a note to Mom.”

“Ah. Tell Nancy about those muffins I accidentally set on fire. She’ll like that,” he said, and then off he went, whistling anew.

Don’t do it. This is insane. Do not.

My lip trembled. I didn’t need to hear this again; it was seared into me already. I could just follow Nick into the living room and forget this whole thing. But my disobedient hands were already rewinding the video and unmuting it. And there it was, clear as a bell. The woman right opposite the Abbey doors—sporting a Union Jack top hat and caricature of my face on her T-shirt—had started it, her face purple and contorted with rage.

“Slut!”

Her loud, angry braying had spread like a virus through the crowd. Until that day, I’d never personally experienced real booing outside of a baseball stadium. The verbal battery, fully audible on this worldwide TV broadcast, was exactly as I’d remembered it—every sound, every screed, every epithet spit at me from a frothing spectator, a wave of furious words crashing together amid the clip-clop of the horses drawing our carriage. Anyone not booing us just looked broken. Confused. Betrayed. A nation’s worth of what I’d seen on Nick’s face one day prior.