Kate (20 page)

Back in Britain, the romantic getaway prompted further engagement rumors, much to the amusement of the pair, who had started a wall chart in the kitchen at Clarence House to document the number of times the press speculated they would tie the knot. There were, however, reports that aides had started earmarking potential dates for a royal wedding around the calendar of the senior royals. It is not unusual for significant events to be planned months in advance, but St. James's Palace Press Office denied an engagement was imminent, insisting there were “no plans” for the couple to get married. When William and Kate attended Laura Parker Bowles's wedding to Harry Lopes in Wiltshire later that summer, there was no ring on Kate's finger.

If Kate was expecting a proposal, she didn't let her disappointment show. In fact, during the summer of 2006, the relationship seemed stronger than ever. The couple's fears about conducting their romance in the real world were largely allayed by packing in as many holidays as William's Sandhurst timetable allowed. In August, they headed to the party island of Ibiza to stay with Kate's uncle, Gary, who gave William, Kate, Pippa, James, and a few of their friends, including Guy Pelly, the keys to his $9-million Spanish villa, La Maison de Bang Bang. With gold engraving on the external wall, it is a fortress-turned-party-palace and a rather unlikely destination for royalty, but Kate and William had a ball. Gary, who
knew the island well, chartered a yacht so that they could sail across the sea to nearby Formentera.

Surprisingly for such a popular vacation destination, William and Kate were able to explore the island in relative anonymity and spent a night at the Pacha nightclub without being recognized. “We organized a whole itinerary for them, including going over to a neighboring island on a boat. They've got mud baths and they were all rolling in the healing mud, which they thought was great fun, although it was particularly smelly,” Gary recalled in a magazine interview. Tanned and toned in their matching white bikinis, Kate and Pippa performed expert backflips into the azure waters. Back at the villa, Gary arranged for William to learn how to mix music. “A friend of mine was teaching William how to mix on the DJ decks and he performed to the whole family. William loved the place. He said it was so much fun. Carole told me afterwards that they all had a brilliant time.”

William had enjoyed being on vacation with Kate and her siblings, and just as Kate had been welcomed into the royal residences, William felt at home with her family, known by friends as the “En Masse Middletons” because they spend so much time together. It was entirely different from William's home life, and the couple often went to Oak Acre for Sunday-roast dinners. Carole made a point of stocking William's favorite red wine, and William was expected to help clear the plates after the meal, along with everyone else. Sitting around the family table and catching up over an informal meal was a treat the prince rarely enjoyed with his own family. He got along well with Michael and adored Carole, who apparently kept a picture of the prince on her mobile phone. William had been very supportive when Carole's mother, Dorothy, passed
away in July after a four-month-long battle with lung cancer. Although he had never met “Lady Dorothy,” he knew how close Kate was to her seventy-one-year-old grandmother, whom she regularly visited in Pangbourne. Her mother's death, four years after her father passed away, hit Carole hard. Dorothy had always been a strong, energetic, and charismatic woman, but when Ron died she was terribly lonely, according to Jean Harrison: “Dorothy was very sprightly, but she had always been very dependent on Ron, and she was immensely affected by his death. She never learned to drive, and without Ron she couldn't get about much. Then she got cancer, and it was Kate who called me up to tell me that she had died. She said that Dorothy had danced at her last birthday. It was obvious she was very close to her grandmother, and Dorothy would have been over the moon that Kate was dating Prince William, although Dorothy never told me. She knew how to keep a secret.”

According to Gary, Dorothy was very proud that Kate was dating the prince. “To mum, Kate's relationship with William was like all her Christmases had come at once,” he told the
Sun
newspaper. “We are from such humble stock, and then here is her granddaughter dating Prince William. She was so proud.”

Dudley Singleton recalled how Kate took care of her mother at the wake, which was held at Oak Acre. William was not at the funeral service, during which Kate read a poem, and according to Mr. Singleton, at the reception afterward, Kate chatted with the local villagers and her grandmother's friends who had come to pay their respects. “I remember talking to her and she was very quiet. She was very upset as she was very close to Dorothy, but she was dignified in her mourning. There was no great show of mourning—she didn't wear her grief on her sleeve. Kate was going places at this stage, she was
with William, but she still made time to talk to the villagers and no one was excluded.”

Still, not for the first time in her life, Kate was at a crossroads. Another summer had passed, and as the year 2006 advanced to its close, she had to admit she had no real vocation. Fortunately, a solution was around the corner, thanks once again to the Robinsons. Belle Robinson, who owns the Jigsaw clothing company with her husband, recalled, “She rang me up one day and said: ‘Could I come and talk to you about work?' She genuinely wanted a job, but she needed an element of flexibility to continue the relationship with a very high-profile man and a life that she can't dictate.” When an opportunity for an accessories buyer at Jigsaw Junior—the children's clothing division of the high-street chain—came up, Belle suggested that the job might suit Kate perfectly.

After a successful interview, she reported for her first day of work, arriving at the company's head office in Kew, immaculate in a crossover jersey dress and a pair of L.K. Bennett heels. Her four colleagues in the fashionable open-plan office were all female, glamorous, and ambitious, and each had been briefed ahead of Kate's arrival—not that she needed any introduction. By now she was a cover star, gracing the front pages of magazines and newspapers on an almost daily basis. Kate and William's recent holiday in Mustique had been major news, so the staff was well aware of her connections to their bosses. It was one of the reasons Kate was allowed to work a flexible week although she was expected to work from 9:00
A.M
. until 6:00
P.M
. Although Kate tried to blend in, her arrival most mornings was far from low key. These days she was driving a fancy silver Audi A3, the royals' car of choice, and had been given a discount on the luxury hatchback. It was
more powerful than her Golf, but she could never outrun the paparazzi, who would stake out the entrance to the building, waiting for a picture. Belle recalled, “There were days when there were TV crews at the end of the drive. We'd say, ‘Listen, do you want to go out the back way?' And she'd say: ‘To be honest, they're going to hound us until they've got the picture. So why don't I just go, get the picture done, and then they'll leave us alone.' I thought she was very mature . . . and I think she's been quite good at neither courting the press nor sticking two fingers in the air at them. I don't think I would have been quite so polite.”

According to another colleague, “Kate was pleasant from the outset and made friends quickly. We were aware of her connection to Belle and John, but she was never treated differently. She was very diligent and never late, and she had a very good work ethic. She made an effort to blend in and get on with the job.”

Kate's job was to select children's accessories, and she was responsible for purchasing bracelets, necklaces, ballet slippers, hair clips, and anything else that she thought would sell. She spoke to suppliers in the Middle East and worked closely with her team, making key decisions about the season's trends and what would sell both on the shop floor and on the website. It was her dream job, and she seemed to have a genuine talent for spotting eye-catching designs. She quickly became part of the team, and if not working out in the company gym at lunchtime, she would often eat lunch in the staff canteen. Kate's colleagues knew when William called because she would take the call outside so as not be overheard. “She was very cautious,” recalled a colleague. “She got on with the people she worked with, and she was close to a girl she worked with called
Katie Orme, but they weren't people she confided in. She never talked about William or their relationship; she was always very discreet.”

Being a family-run company, there were often social occasions such as barbecues and cricket matches held for the staff members and their families. Kate once attended a company fashion show and tea party at the Hurlingham Club, but despite her efforts to just be one of the team, an enterprising photographer used a long lens to snap her drinking a cup of tea, and the photograph was published in a glossy magazine. As a buyer, Kate had the opportunity to meet fashion writers and photographers when she went to press days at the New Bond Street office, and she was happy to talk with them. “Kate and the other buyers came to see how the collection had come together,” said a colleague. “Kate was very comfortable among the fashion press and people were naturally curious, but she was just pleasant and confident. I remember her chatting to members of the press. She was very interested in the work they were doing.” According to her friend Emma Sayle, “Kate loved the job. She always said she had great fun traveling to fairs across the country, where she would hunt for ideas and inspiration.”

Kate's four-day-a-week arrangement, which had apparently annoyed some of the staff, meant that she could attend William's Passing Out parade at the end of December. Kate and her parents had been given VIP tickets to the ceremony, which in itself predictably sparked a flurry of media activity. It was the first time Kate had attended an official engagement in the company of the Queen and senior royals, and the fact that William had also invited her parents made it even more significant. Dressed in a scarlet dress coat and a wide-brimmed
black hat, Kate beamed as she watched William graduate as a second lieutenant. He would be joining the Household Cavalry's Blues and Royals regiment in the new year to train as a troop commander, like Harry.

In her elegant fitted brown coat and Cossack-style fur hat, Carole stood next to her daughter, occasionally whispering an aside and glancing at her husband, who was sitting next to William's private secretary and most senior aide, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton. Kate looked on as William paraded outside Old College in his smart dark-blue tunic adorned with a red sash, signifying that his platoon had the honor of carrying the sovereign's banner. William found Kate in the crowd and smiled. “I love the uniform—it's so sexy,” she whispered to her mother. The cameras were fixed on Kate, and a lip-reader was commissioned by one broadcaster to relay her every word. Unfortunately, it was neither William's uniform nor Kate's comment but Carole's unfortunate habit of rather innocently chewing nicotine gum throughout the ceremony that made the headlines in the newspapers the next day. She had been trying to quit smoking and was mortified that she had been captured chewing away. It was a taste of things to come, and Carole vowed she would not slip up next time.

Within a matter of weeks it was Christmas, and once again William and Kate prepared to spend the holiday apart. The Middletons had rented a country house in Perthshire, and Kate had invited William to join them for the new year celebrations. She had decided not to go to Sandringham for the Boxing Day shoot this year so that she could be with her parents, who had both recently lost a parent—for along with the passing of Dorothy, Kate's other grandmother, Valerie, had also died that summer from lymphoma.

Set on the outskirts of Alyth, Jordanstone House, an eighteenth-century manor house, was quite something. It was bitterly cold outside, a foot of snow adding a touch of magic to the scene. Inside, the Christmas tree lights glowed and log fires crackled in the spacious hearths. There was an all-weather tennis court, snooker room, an orangery, acres of surrounding parkland to explore, and four-poster beds in most of the thirteen bedrooms. William and Kate had been assigned the most luxurious of all, and she was looking forward to his arrival. However, when William telephoned on Boxing Day evening from Sandringham to tell her he wasn't coming, she was crushed. It was not like him to let her down at the last minute, and as it was only a few days before William was to relocate to Combermere Barracks in Windsor to start life as an army officer with the Blues and Royals, Kate was even more upset that she wouldn't be spending time with him.

William tried to make it up to Kate by throwing a small party at Highgrove to celebrate her twenty-fifth birthday, but she was rattled. The prince was in Windsor on her actual birthday, and when Kate left her apartment that morning, she looked tired and puffy faced. Dressed in a pretty black-and-white print Topshop dress and her standard knee-high black suede boots, she had not expected to have to elbow her way past close to twenty photographers and TV cameramen who had been camped outside her front door since 6:00
A.M
. Kate's birthday had prompted a fresh barrage of speculation that there would be an engagement announcement, and there was a panic to get the first pre-engagement picture. These days, a good frame of Kate was worth up to $30,000. The Princess of Wales's former press secretary, Patrick Jephson, had fueled the rumor mill by claiming in a magazine article
that Kate was set to be the next royal bride and that an announcement was imminent. To an observer, the signs were there. Bookmakers had stopped taking bets on when the couple would get engaged, and the High Street store Woolworth's had already started designing “Wills and Kate” wedding china. There was talk of Kate being given around-the-clock police protection—a step that historically accompanied an engagement—and there were police outside her home that morning to keep the press gang in check. Like the young Diana Spencer on the eve of her engagement to Charles, Kate was like a rabbit in headlights as she walked to her car. Usually unflappable, she looked genuinely shaken when some of the photographers chased after her as she accelerated out of the street.