Finding Freedom

Although Meghan didn’t grow up with pets, Bogs, as she called him, became the object of her devotion and in heavy rotation on her Instagram feed. But she credits Ellen DeGeneres as the reason she adopted the Lab mix.

Meghan was cuddling with Bogart at the animal shelter that had rescued him and his brother in Los Angeles when the daytime talk show host walked in with her wife, actress Portia de Rossi.

“Is that your dog?” Ellen asked Meghan.

“No,” Meghan answered.

The two women had never met. And although Meghan, of course, knew Ellen, Ellen had no idea who she was. Still, the famous comedian said to her, “You have to take that dog.”

“Well, I’m deciding . . .”

“Rescue the dog!” Ellen ordered.

Ellen left the rescue center, but as soon as she walked outside, she tapped on the window and yelled to Meghan, “Take the dog!”

How could she refuse? “It’s sort of like if Oprah tells you to do something,” Meghan said. “I brought him home. Because Ellen told me to.”

She didn’t regret the decision. In fact, two years later, she adopted another rescue—a beagle she named Guy after meeting him at an adoption event organized by the Ontario-based charity A Dog’s Dream Rescue.

Now her sweet dogs ran underfoot as Meghan whipped up her signature roast chicken for the prince sitting in her sleek, all-white chef’s kitchen.

While Harry and Meghan kept a low profile, the prince’s presence could not go unnoticed in her neighborhood. It didn’t take long for Harry’s visits to become an open secret among the residents of Seaton Village. As one of Meghan’s neighbors said, “When a black SUV was parked with guys inside wearing headsets and eating burritos, we’d say, ‘Hey, Harry’s in town!’ ” But the news never went further than the Seaton Village community Facebook page, typically devoted to discussions about shoveling snow and dog poop. Toronto doesn’t have the kind of paparazzi presence of New York, LA, or London, because there is not a large Canadian celebrity media industry to serve.

But Harry and Meghan didn’t just spend time together in London and Canada. Letting their closest friends in on their secret had been key. Not worried that any of their dearest confidants would out them, they instead found themselves with a multitude of accomplices willing to help them hide.

One of Harry’s oldest friends, Arthur Landon, offered the couple the use of his LA home for a week. The son of the late brigadier Tim Landon—known as the White Sultan, or Landon of Arabia, because of the peaceful coup he is said to have helped organize in Oman and the fortune he made there—Arthur is one of the wealthiest young men in Britain. The onetime model and filmmaker, who had always tried to look out for Harry since the two became friends at Eton College, called the woman who sold the naked photos of the prince during the trip they took together to Las Vegas “despicable.”

Knowing firsthand what lengths people would go to in order to get a picture of Harry and his personal life, Arthur told the prince that the best place he could stay in LA while visiting with Meghan was his house. Arthur’s bohemian-style West Hollywood spread sits in the lowest part of the Hills, with a pool and views of Sunset Boulevard. It was a prime, and private, location from which Harry had his first chance to visit Meghan’s native city. The trip—during which they spent almost the entire time at the house in hiding—is also when Harry met Doria for the first time.

Unable to venture to Doria’s two-bedroom house in the neighborhood of Windsor Hills, Harry and Meghan invited her over to their temporary LA digs. (Although the couple was holed up, that didn’t stop Meghan from having Harry taste dishes from some of her favorite local restaurants, including Sushi Park, which she said has “the most delicious sashimi,” by using a delivery app.) While Meghan may have been nervous for her mom to meet Harry for the first time, Doria was as cool as ever. It takes a lot to faze the yoga instructor, although she later told a colleague at the mental health clinic where she worked that the experience of meeting a prince who also happened to be dating her daughter was “a little surreal.”

Although she talked with Doria about the guys she dated, Meghan didn’t make it a habit of introducing them to her mom until the relationship was further down the line. But she wanted to put Doria at ease and show her that even though Harry was a worldwide public figure, he was also a good man. “Meghan didn’t want her worrying about anything,” says a source. “She wanted her mom to see the real Harry. The man she was falling in love with.”

Harry also wanted to impress Meghan’s mother when he first met her. Not with gifts, but through his words and actions. Often one to worry what others think of him, he wanted to prove that he was different from the royals depicted in the British tabloids. And it worked. Doria came away impressed by his compassion, empathy, and level of activism. As a friend said, “She could see he was genuine.”

During those first months of their relationship, when their news was still a secret, Meghan went to the UK at least three times. Each time she arrived at the airport, Harry made sure a driver was waiting for her—no fancy Rolls-Royce or chauffeur in uniform, just someone from a local corporate taxi company that he and other members of the royal family used on occasion.

Markus, however, could always be counted on to find a cozy, luxurious, and hidden spot for the couple. He put them up at a private four-bedroom cottage tucked away from the main members’ Soho Farmhouse. In Oxfordshire, barely an hour and a half outside of London, it was the perfect retreat from the city. Although the stone house stood on one hundred acres of English countryside, they still enjoyed sashimi and other Japanese dishes delivered to their cottage from Pen Yen, one of the restaurants on the property.

During a fall visit Markus arranged for the couple to spend a weekend at Babington House, an eighteenth-century manor house in Somerset that Soho House had converted into one of their vacation properties. Harry and Meghan’s accommodations included a roaring open fire and a butler—another secret getaway the press never found out about.

It wasn’t long before Meghan was feeling so confident in their pairing, so emboldened by their ability to hide in plain sight, that she even had Harry join her as she walked her dogs along their favorite paths through Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park. A hoodie and a baseball cap were enough to obscure Harry’s famous face during his visit to the city. Most Canadians never looked twice anyway at the young couple wearing matching beaded blue bracelets they picked up in Botswana. (Bracelets are a signature item of the prince’s, and each has its own meaning and importance. A silver band with engravings that he’s worn religiously since 2001 came from his 1997 trip to Africa after his mother died. William has been photographed wearing a similar bracelet.)

They especially didn’t feel like spending Halloween weekend in hiding, as there was much to celebrate. Some four months into their relationship, they were madly in love and eager to take part in the fun of one of their favorite holidays. The evening of October 29, with Harry in town, the couple decided to go to a big costume party being thrown at Soho House in Toronto. Harry and Meghan both had on Venetian-style masks, hiding their true identities to other partygoers.

Surrounded by the establishment’s exclusive clientele and confident due to a rule that discouraged patrons from surreptitiously snapping pictures with their phones, Harry and Meghan felt at ease. It wasn’t their first time at the club. During a previous visit, they had stepped into the bar’s photo booth together, keeping the strip of snapshots as a souvenir.

They also weren’t alone. The pair turned up at the Halloween bash with Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie and her longtime boyfriend, Jack Brooksbank, who was in Toronto for work as a brand ambassador for George Clooney and Rande Gerber’s tequila brand, Casamigos. Harry and Meghan had already been out on two double dates with them.

Eugenie had always been more than just a cousin to Harry. They were also the closest of friends. Out of all the Queen’s grandchildren, Harry and Eugenie have one of the most natural connections. Like Harry, Eugenie is loyal, honest, and great fun. The two had many nights out together in London, sneaking into back entrances of clubs, such as Mahiki, where Jack once was manager, or Tonteria, where in one of the VIP cave areas, they downed shots from Mexican skull-shaped glasses and a giant frozen margarita (with multiple straws). Harry had so much fun at the club co-owned by one of Harry’s close childhood pals, Guy Pelly, he partied there four nights in one week of July 2014.

Although they grew up in different places (she at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, he at Kensington Palace in London), the close relationship between their mothers brought them together. Sarah Ferguson would often bring her daughters to tea with Diana, William, and Harry at Kensington Palace. After both women’s divorces were finalized in 1996, the single mothers took their kids on vacation together to the South of France. (It was Harry who later ensured that his aunt Sarah was invited to the wedding ceremony and first reception—quite the feat considering that Prince Philip reportedly once said he never wanted to be in the same room as her again.) Like Harry, Eugenie also struggled to carve out her own identity growing up. Not being in a senior role meant that she had to go out into the world and find her own path, which she had done, moving to New York in 2013 to work at Paddle8, the auction house run by Misha’s husband and Harry’s friend Alexander.

Harry had always confided in his cousin when it came to the women in his life. Not only did he trust her implicitly, but friends say that she gives great advice and has always been “beyond wise” for her years. It’s not surprising, then, that Eugenie was one of the first in the family to know about his relationship with Meghan. Although she was the one to introduce Harry to her good friend Cressida (they used to double-date as well), she was nothing but encouraging about his new relationship. In fact, Eugenie, who’d long wanted to see her cousin settle down and be happy, told friends she loved Meghan and that she was “just the tonic” for him.

On that late October night in Toronto, Harry was happy, and so was Meghan.

A cocktail or so into the party, they were both feeling relaxed, absorbing the Halloween spirit.

It was possibly the perfect night out—until they received a call from one of Harry’s aides at Kensington Palace. It wasn’t good news.

The Sunday Express was going to run with the story of their relationship—and the tabloid was rumored to have been tipped off by an employee of none other than Eugenie and her father, Prince Andrew.

With the news about to blast out to every corner of the Internet that everyone’s favorite bachelor was off the market, Harry and Meghan’s night of revelry threatened to turn into a melee.

Harry and Meghan left the party and returned to her house. Their main worry was that her place would be besieged by photographers within twenty-four hours. They had a little time to think, because there were only a couple of paparazzi in Toronto. (One of them had already texted Meghan to ask if the news was true; she didn’t reply.) But it wouldn’t be long before photographers flew in from New York and LA, all hoping to get that first picture of the happy couple. Another outlet, Us Weekly, had also confirmed their pairing and knew that they were together in Toronto but agreed with the Palace to hold off reporting the news until Harry had returned home.

Harry’s phone wouldn’t stop pinging with word from the Palace. Aides suggested it would be best for Harry to cut his trip short and quietly return to London, his minimal security now something of an issue. But the prince wasn’t having it. He wasn’t budging. If things were going to get tricky, there was nowhere else he’d rather be than at Meghan’s side.

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