Meghan of Montecito

She's left the Firm behind. Harry's found a polo team in Santa Barbara. The kids are doing great. Now she's ready for her own next act.

- By Allison P. Davis. Photographs by Campbell Addy

THE CONDITIONS ARE RIGHT FOR CONFESSION.

It is a beautiful August day in Montecito, in a beautiful sitting room, in a beautiful home. Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, a lively 3-year-old with a shock of ginger curls identical to his father's, toddles into the room demanding Momma listen to his heartbeat with a wooden toy stethoscope. He stands, tummy protruding, while his mother, Meghan, convincingly performs her glee at hearing the thump-thump, thump-thump in his chest. Archie giggles and, satisfied, toddles right back out again.

Meghan, relaxing in a cozy chair, gazes over all that is climate-controlled and high-ceilinged and sun-dappled and perfectly marshmallowy, and hers. An invisible hand has lit a Soho Housebranded rose-water candle (the founder, Nick Jones, is a friend from long before I met Harry, she says), and that scent fills the air, mingling with the gentle tones of a flamenco-inflected guitar floating from a speaker. Then, in the lull in the conversation, Meghan turns to me and leans forward to ask in a conspiratorial hush, Do you want to know a secret?

Meghan, silenced no more, looks around, making sure nobody (who would be?) is listening in. Then the top-secret drop: I'm getting back... on Instagram, she says, her eyes alight and devilish.