“Don’t worry, I’m used to it. Hear it all the time,” Freddie told me, but his gaiety was forced. “At least she thinks I’m dishy. But now I really need that drink.”
The reception, like the wedding itself, was intimate, funny, unexpected. There were six toasts from Cilla’s side of the family and one riotous speech from Gaz’s father, the infamous disgraced finance minister, about how not to handle your joint bank accounts. Cilla danced a comedic tango with her new husband before a lively foxtrot with her dad, which made my heart ache for mine. I caught myself envying my friends. This wedding was deeply personal, with no artifice; Gaz and Cilla could just be Gaz and Cilla, the same in public and in private, a luxury that Nick and I never would have. This ceremony was for them. Ours was for the country, and for the Crown, and I felt a pang for what could have been if Nick had been born anything but what he was—a pang that was as much for him as for me. Instead of cheering me up, the cocktails pushed me deeper into the melancholy I had tried and failed to leave at home.
Freddie noticed. And he tried to help. He told gleefully atrocious rumors, including one about Dim Tim Fitzwilliam and a yak that I wasn’t even sure I fully understood. He roped Gemma and Bea—the latter, in diametric opposition to me, rather more buoyant than usual—into a rousing game of Spot the Sutcliffes (we were tripped up when the man with the parrot turned out only to be the owner of Cilla’s village pharmacy). And he coaxed me onto the dance floor, where I gave gaiety my best shot. But I was a husk out there. As the music slowed into a ballad, I glanced over and saw Bea and Gemma grind to a halt, awkwardly, before Bea drew her girlfriend in for a loving slow dance. It was a public spontaneity of emotion that had become absent from my own life, and it ground me to a wobbly, empty halt.
Freddie abruptly pulled me close, as if to dance. “Are you all right?” he whispered.
I could not speak. My emotional dam was poorly built, destined to burst, but I’d never thought it would happen here. BITCHY BEX’S BRIDAL BREAKDOWN would be the best day of Xandra Deane’s life.
Freddie clearly sensed this, because he raised his voice and said, “I’m sure Bea has some allergy medication in the house.”
He marched us past Bea and said, under his breath, “Mayday.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Clive begin to extricate himself from Paddington to join us. Bea waved him off with a very awkward thumbs-up—like she’d never done that before, which she probably hadn’t—and he seemed surprised and reluctant, even as Paddington pulled him away. Then Bea leapt into action.
“Let’s keep this as tight as possible,” she said. “Freddie, you get her out of here and straighten her out.”
“No.” I shook them off. “This is Gaz and Cilla’s wedding. It’s important. I can’t leave.”
“You cannot stay,” Bea countered. “Not catatonic. We’ll tell Gaz you got far too drunk, which he’ll think is an extreme compliment.”
Gemma piped up, “There’s a secret back road. Freddie, you leave alone, wave at the paparazzi, drive off, and then double back. I’ll tell you where. Bea can take Bex.”
Freddie saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
Bea then marched me out of the barn with loud commentary about the whereabouts of her antihistamine. I followed mutely, mentally adrift, as we completed our diversion and then crept to a well-hidden access road snaking through the foliage. I tried fervently to tamp down the feelings that wanted to come out in pure, unregulated Bex fashion, but when Bea propped me up on a gate and turned to leave, brushing off her hands as if her work was done, I met her with a sob. She sighed, then put an arm around my shoulders and let me heave it out all over her cashmere wrap, turning her head away as if feelings might be contagious.
“I told you this was a job, and it is,” she said after I had burned through the first wave of tears. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not the right person for it.”
She wiped my eye with a thumb. “You won’t get many of these,” she said. “Take full advantage of this one and get it all out.”
“I can see why Nick loved Gemma. I’m super glad for both of us that she turned out to be a lesbian,” I blurted.
Bea laughed. “Rebecca, so am I,” she said.
“Why didn’t you tell me back then?” I asked, snuffling. “About Gemma?”
Bea looked exasperated. “Because it wouldn’t have mattered,” she said. “She wasn’t the problem. She was a symptom.” She paused. “And I didn’t bloody well want to. We’re not all as blubbery about things as you are.” She nudged me. “Here’s Freddie.”
He pulled over and she yanked open the door on his borrowed sports coupe—Freddie never met a sedan he didn’t disdain—and hurled me into the passenger seat.
“Crikey,” was all Freddie said when he saw my condition.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled. “I ruined your night.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “I’m an officer, and occasionally I am a gentleman, and I am seeing you home. And then whatever this is, we’ll fix it.”
*
I spent the whole ride crying, but casually, helplessly, as if someone was ritualistically flushing my tear ducts. Freddie simply drove, companionably silent, and then hustled me back into the flat. He took one look at the lived-in mess, my laptop—still awake, with new comment alerts pinging fast and furious—open to The Royal Flush. He shook his head.
“Let’s get you into bed,” he said.
I barely blinked as he led me into my bedroom. As soon as he let me go, I flopped onto my mattress with extreme melodrama and a very satisfying thwack.
“Five stars. Great buildup to a satisfying climax,” he said.
A fresh gallon of tears burst out of my face. Freddie sat next to me on the bed and patted my back awkwardly, silently, for what must have been twenty minutes.
“I’m going to get you some water and a snack,” he finally said.
“I’m not drunk,” I mumbled into my comforter.
“Aha, it speaks!” he said. “But you have to be dehydrated. Be right back.”
The day’s events swam in front of my swollen eyes. Gemma and Bea throwing their reservations to the wind. Cilla’s father and Gaz’s, leaning against the bar, watching their children slow dance. And Cilla, so beautiful in her wedding dress; Gaz, blooming with pride. They’d texted me during the drive home, seeing through the ruse and somehow loving me anyway. I loathed myself the more for not deserving it.
“You have no reasonable snacks,” Freddie said. I opened my eyes to see two of him holding a bag of kale chips and a glass of water. He coalesced back into one.
“I’ve been put on a diet,” I told him.
“What? That’s absurd,” he said, giving the bag a tentative, unimpressed sniff.
I shoved a joyless fistful into my mouth. “Takes a lot to upgrade me into duchess material.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?” Freddie asked, sitting back down on the bed. “Talk to me, Bex. Please. You can trust me.”