Kate (27 page)

Although friends rallying around William suggested that his ex’s high profile was ‘driving him up the wall’, Kate’s armoury of tactics appeared to be working, as he made the first tentative steps towards a reconciliation. Missing his former girlfriend and realising that he had made a mistake, he persuaded Kate to meet him at his apartment in Clarence House on 26 May, the first in a series of trysts during which they talked over the separation.

However, enjoying her new-found freedom, Kate kept William guessing, being spotted at Mahiki four days later with several eligible men. Wearing a flimsy red top and white trousers, she arrived at the club’s Johnny Cash theme night on the arm of Henry Ropner, son of the shipping tycoon Sir John, who lived in a £1 million flat in Chelsea. Henry, who had gone to school with William and dated his old flame Jecca Craig, had known Kate since he was a geography student at Edinburgh University. Inside the club, she sipped the aptly named cocktail Good-Time Girl and danced with Jamie Murray Wells, the millionaire founder of Glasses Direct. She left the club with estate agent Charles Morshead, who bore a remarkable similarity to William.

But, although Kate was said to be keen to ‘live life to the max’, she was not looking for romance – because she already had her sights elsewhere. She finally succumbed to William’s charms once again on 9 June – ten weeks after they had broken up and two weeks after they had their first tentative drink – accompanying her former boyfriend to a raucous mess party in his barracks to celebrate the end of his gruelling course as a troop leader. Entitled ‘Freakin’ Naughty’, the party, complete with bouncy castle and paddling pool, was packed with guests dressed up as naughty nuns, doctors and nurses, but William could not take his eyes off Kate. After chatting to her all night, he danced intimately with her before kissing her in the middle of the crowded throng. He took her back to his private quarters in the early hours of the morning.

Even then, Kate did not stop partying, going five days later to Raffles nightclub, which describes itself as ‘one of the last bastions of decadence and debauchery’ and was founded by an old Etonian friend of Princess Margaret. Three days later, on 17 June, while William was at the Trooping of the Colour with his family, Kate flew out to Ibiza for a holiday from the social whirl. She stayed in a five-bedroom villa on the south-west of the island with a party of friends including her brother James and her school friend Emilia d’Erlanger, also a close friend of Prince William. After they arrived, the group headed straight for the Blue Marlin bar, an exclusive venue overlooking the Cala Jondal bay in San José. During the trip, Kate topped up her tan in preparation for what would turn out to be the highlight of her social season.

It was 30 June 2007, the day before the Concert for Diana, and speculation was mounting over William and Kate’s first public appearance since they had broken up. Maintaining her legendary cool, Kate ignored the gossip and donned an Issa dress to spend the afternoon at Wimbledon, where – when rain did not stop play – she watched the 2004 champion Maria Sharapova annihilate her Japanese opponent in straight sets. That night, under cover of darkness, she sneaked into Clarence House for one last secret tryst, going to extraordinary lengths not to be spotted. Leaving her home in Kensington around 9 p.m., she parked her Audi in the car park of a Mayfair hotel around midnight, walking into the palace on foot so as not to be seen. An hour and three quarters later, one of the palace aides picked the car up and drove it into the grounds. The following day, she sat in the royal box, cool as a cucumber, as if nothing had happened. It was only at the after-show party that the couple gave the game away.

Chapter 23
Back in the Royal Fold

L
ooking elegant in an ivory doubled-breasted coat and black boots, Kate Middleton congratulated her dashing boyfriend, Flying officer William Wales, after he was presented with his wings by his father in a ceremony at the oldest air force college in the world.

In their first official appearance since they had got back together – and the most prominent yet – Kate strolled side by side with her boyfriend, who was wearing full dress uniform, down the corridor at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell on their way to a drinks reception with Charles and Camilla. The couple’s public show of togetherness, on 11 April 2008, a year after they had broken up, once again fuelled speculation that they were on the verge of getting engaged. Although Kate had attended William’s graduation ceremony at Sandhurst with her parents in December 2007, she had not on that occasion been photographed with the prince.

Arriving with Princess Diana’s sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Kate, then 26, was ushered into RAF Cranwell, near Sleaford in Lincolnshire, through a back entrance. Sitting with William’s aunt, she watched, smiling broadly, as her boyfriend and 25 other officers received insignias from Prince Charles, who himself had graduated from RAF Cranwell in the early ’70s.

Afterwards, William joined his father and stepmother as, despite rainy weather, they ventured onto the runway to look at a display of planes, among them the very Chipmunk T10 trainer plane in which Charles had learned to fly. Little did they realise how big a storm was brewing.

By the time Kate Middleton had been reunited with her prince at the Concert for Diana, in July 2007, she had become one of the season’s most in-demand party guests – a coup for a girl who had been dismissed as a social climber.
Tatler
had placed her eighth on a list of the world’s best-dressed women and named her as their ‘most-wanted’ guest, describing her as a ‘sexy siren’ made ‘superin-demand’ now that she was single. Suddenly, Kate Middleton was cool.

Three weeks after the concert, her status was assured when she received a sought-after gilt-embossed invitation to one of the parties of the season, the Duchess of Cornwall’s 60th birthday banquet. Her attendance at the formal black-tie ball, organised by Prince Charles’s aide Michael Fawcett and Camilla’s sister Annabel Elliot, an interior designer, showed that her newly rekindled relationship with Prince William was as strong as ever. Although she had not initially been invited to the party, she was put on the guest list the moment that she and William got back together.

Wearing a long white gown, Kate looked totally relaxed and happy as she sipped champagne and cocktails in the gardens of Highgrove with Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall. Prince Harry and Chelsy Davy were unable to make the party as they were on holiday, but there were plenty of celebrity guests, including the comedians Joan Rivers and Stephen Fry, TV presenter Jools Holland, actors Dame Judi Dench and Edward Fox, actress Joanna Lumley and her conductor husband Stephen Barlow and actor Timothy West, with his wife Prunella Scales. After dinner – a three-course organic meal – Kate and William made their way onto the dance floor, where the prince mouthed the lyrics of the Frank Sinatra song ‘It Had to Be you’ to his girlfriend.

Having returned to the royal fold, it was only a matter of time before Kate would pull out of The Sisterhood’s dragon-boat team, which had attracted so much publicity when she was single. Unfortunately, she dropped out of the race, which took place on 24 August, at the last minute, meaning that the girls could not find a replacement, although that did not stop them crossing in record time and raising £100,000 for charity.

Apparently totally enamoured with his girlfriend, William whisked Kate away on 16 August for a romantic holiday on the paradise island of Desroches in the Indian ocean. It was the first time that the couple had been away together since their skiing trip to Zermatt in January 2006, before William started at Sandhurst, and only the second time they had ever been on holiday
à deux
. Desroches was the perfect venue for a couple seeking privacy. With a tiny population of only 50 people, the island, which is 144 miles south-west of Mahe, the main island in the Seychelles, is ideal for divers and holidaymakers looking for sandy beaches, coconut plantations, endless coral and luscious vegetation, and it caters for only a handful of tourists. William and Kate stayed in a £500-a-night suite in one of ten double chalets in the Desroches Island Resort, overlooking a lagoon, where they spent their days scuba diving, snorkelling and sunbathing. At night, they dined in the resort’s restaurant, with a view of the ocean, or ate under the stars. After having dinner with members of staff on the last night of the holiday, William told them, ‘We will definitely return. We have had the most fantastic break.’

After they returned from their holiday – a week before the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana’s death – the couple went to great lengths to avoid being seen together. Kate did not attend the thanksgiving service for the late princess and they gave their usual haunts a wide berth. However, on 5 October they finally let their guard down during a night out at Boujis and were photographed together for the first time since they had broken up six months earlier. In a change from their usual paparazzi-avoidance tactics, they came out of the club together and drove off in William’s Range Rover.

On 11 october, the couple were spotted together again when they flew up to the Birkhall estate for a long weekend to spend the last few days of the deerstalking season with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. Dressed in camouflage gear, Kate was seen two days later lying in the heather and being coached by ghillies on how to use a hunting rifle. Her presence on the stag hunt that day may have endeared her to Prince William, but it outraged animal-rights protestors. She looked well on the way to becoming a fully fledged member of the royal family.

As the girlfriend of Prince William, Kate had grown accustomed to coming second to royal duties, but now it was brought home to her that she would have to come second to the military as well, as William missed her birthday, on 9 January, for the second year in a row. As the future commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces, the prince had little choice in the matter; the previous year, he had been on duty with the Household Cavalry and this year he had just signed up to the RAF.

Kate celebrated her 26th with her parents, Michael and Carole, and sister Pippa at Tom Aikens restaurant in Elystan Street, Chelsea. Afterwards, she and Pippa dropped in at Kitts, a swanky new nightclub in Sloane Square, the heart of Sloane Ranger territory. For the next few months, she would see little of her man. He was based 126 miles from London at RAF Cranwell.

Built on land requisitioned by the Admiralty from the Earl of Bristol, RAF Cranwell was commissioned on 1 April 1916 as a training college for the Royal Naval Air Service, which merged with the Army’s Royal Flying Corps to form the RAF two years later. The Royal Air Force College opened in 1920 under the command of Air Commodore C.A.H. Longcroft. Fourteen years later, the future Edward VIII opened its current brick and Portland stone building, with its central portico of six Corinthian columns.

In a message to the first entry of cadets, the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Hugh Trenchard, said: ‘We have to learn by experience how to organise and administer a great service, both in peace and war, and you, who are present at the college in its first year, will, in future, be at the helm. Therefore, you will have to work your hardest, both as cadets at the college and subsequently as officers, in order to be capable of guiding this great service through its early days and maintaining its traditions and efficiency in the years to come.’

Eighty-eight years later, on 7 January 2008, William arrived at the base on a four-month attachment to its Central Flying School, fulfilling a desire to follow in the footsteps of his forefathers. Men of four successive generations of his family have become RAF pilots: his great-grandfather Prince Albert, later King George VI, was the first member of the royal family to serve in the RAF, immediately after its formation. Both Prince Philip and Prince Charles graduated as flight lieutenants, in 1953 and 1971 respectively, and, like William, Prince Charles received his wings from his father. He has since been promoted and now holds the rank of air chief marshal. Kate’s family also have links to the RAF. Her grandfather Peter Middleton joined the service during the Second World War and also got his wings at RAF Cranwell.

Central Flying School Commandant Nick Seward commented on William’s arrival: ‘During his time with us, Flying officer Wales will be realising a personal ambition to learn how to fly and this will be the beginning of a lifelong relationship with the Royal Air Force. Throughout his attachment, whilst also training alongside fellow officers, we are very keen to make sure that Flying officer Wales will have the opportunity to meet airmen of all ranks to enable him to have as broad as possible an idea of the RAF and how it differs from what he has seen in the army. Following his training, Flying officer Wales will be attached to several front-line units, including support helicopter, search and rescue, air transport and fighter aircraft, which the Royal Air Force operates.’

For the three-month course, tailored specifically to his needs and intended to make him a competent rather than an operational flyer, William donned the RAF’s instantly recognisable olive-green flying jumpsuit, with zips and name tag, to learn to fly solo and perform basic aerobatics. He was one of the first in his class at 1 Squadron of 1 Elementary Flying Training School to make a solo flight, eight days after his arrival, in a propeller-driven Grob G 115E light aircraft.

After a month in Lincolnshire, William was transferred to RAF Linton-on-ouse in North yorkshire, where he trained on the faster propeller-driven aircraft the Tucano T1, which can travel at speeds of up to 345 mph. Although he was now even further from London, he did manage to drive the 225-mile trip on the odd weekend, when he and Kate would enjoy a leisurely Sunday lunch at the Builders Arms, a gastropub on the Kings Road.

On 14 March, Kate made her third trip in as many years to watch the Cheltenham Gold Cup, turning up with Thomas van Straubenzee as an escort. They cheered home Denman as he beat his stablemate and reigning champion Kauto Star in the prestigious race. It was a year since Kate had last been seen at Cheltenham, shortly before her split with Prince William, and the contrast could not have been more different. This year, she had ditched the tweeds for a thigh-skimming navy-blue raincoat and trilby.