My sister had demanded nothing challenging of me. The council registry office’s room needed only a flower arrangement or two, which Olly’s sister had gotten from a friend’s shop. The pub for the reception did have to be closed and cleared by my PPOs, but people booked it for parties all the time, so no locals would be suspicious. I helped with the cake tasting at Gaz’s; he’d done twelve different samples with pots of flavored buttercreams so that they could mix and match, and I got nauseated after trying all of them, but that was hardly a trial. I was to be an official witness, but I got to wear whatever I pleased. The bride stumbled on the perfect dress by accident while passing a vintage shop in Cambridge, and had even been unfazed by the minor media excitement that ensued when someone recognized her shuffling up the high street in her new hometown and reported to Clive that she was knocked up.

Looks like the wrong Porter sister is pregnant. Take it from me: The Palace is in a lather about Lacey; the more the unwed Porter pops, the more prurient the public prying will be into this impropriety—and the more obvious it is that the Duchess herself is heirless.

“This Clive has the morality of a pigeon,” Olly said the next time he saw me.

“Are pigeons notably immoral?” I asked. “Honest question.”

Olly thought about it. “They shit on everything and they won’t go away,” he said. “I vote yes.”

And so, all that was left for me to do was show up. Easy. But the night before the ceremony, Lacey called in a tizzy, saying that she and Olly had wanted one more personal touch and she was having trouble making it happen: They hoped to scatter as many elephant trinkets around the party venue as possible, as an aesthetic nod to what brought them together.

“The ones I bought online just got here, and at least half of them are broken,” she moaned. “And there’s nothing in the local shops that isn’t hideous. I can be a chill bride and still get pissed about wanting better elephants, right?”

“I’m on it,” I said. “Leave this to me.”