The Murder of Princess Diana by Noel Botham Page B

royal confidante, “It was a bizarre setup. Camilla already had Charles and Andrew, and Andrew had Camilla and was romancing Anne. It’s the nearest thing to incest you can imagine. All those secret trysts in their own and friends’ homes in the country. With their marriages on the rocks they just paired off again the way it was when they were all single. The only one left without a partner to play with was Diana, and the others didn’t care about that. It made her feel even more isolated.
    “Ignoring the unsavory aspect, which has never been a problem with either sister or brother, Anne and Charles believed they were in a gossip-proof situation. Their secret relationships were with a married couple who were their best friends. And all three sides to this remarkable triangle were leading separate lives. Anne and Andrew had a number of favorite restaurants where they dined, and they frequently went to the cinema and theater. His appointment as commanding officer at Knightsbridge barracks gave them endless opportunities to be together.
    “They would also meet at his then home, Bolehyde Manor in Wiltshire, for romantic evenings and weekends, sometimes at the same time as Camilla was keeping a rendezvous with Prince Charles at the home of a trusted friend, or at Highgrove. Diana hardly ever went there unless Charles insisted, preferring to brood alone in Kensington Palace.
    “Andrew was probably the most public cuckold in the country, but very few were aware that he was enjoying a highly secret, renewed romance with the Queen’s daughter. If one says his wife’s lover’s sister it sounds even naughtier.
    “When Mark and Anne were no longer able to speak to each other, let alone be in the same house, Andrew, who is godfather to Anne’s daughter, Zara, was a great morale-booster. She was at the stage where she couldn’t stand Mark any longer, and at one point ordered her staff to throw all his clothes into dustbin bags and dump them in the garage when he was away on a trip.
    “It was then that Andrew became invaluable. Their renewed relationship may not have had the fireworks and passion of their first encounter, but it provided the gentle romantic tenderness Anne desperately needed. Andrew escorted her to balls, parties, or simply took her for dinner alone. The two have many common interests and have a very good understanding. He may have been just a shoulder to cry on, but it was a shoulder that Anne needed then and continues to rely on.
    “In many ways they were well suited and could have made a perfect couple, though Andrew had his own problems—with Camilla. I think they both accepted that, had fate dealt them an alternative hand, things might have turned out very differently for them both, and even brought them together permanently that second time around.”
    Said another royal insider who has known the princess for twenty-five years, “Andrew was Anne’s romantic mentor when she was not yet twenty—and he was an experienced lover ten years her senior. As a Household Cavalry officer and friend of Prince Charles, he was very eligible and widely tipped to become her husband. He was her seducer and the man who awoke all that astonishing passion in her. As lovers they were well suited, for she shared his strength of passion, and had he not been a Catholic they might well have become engaged. The Queen liked him well enough to make him her silver stick in waiting.”
    Andrew was a supreme athlete both on the track and in the bedroom. He was a former national-hunt jockey and rode in the 1969 Grand National. “It was the talk of the mess that there wasn’t a frisky horse or woman he couldn’t handle. And he had a penchant for thoroughbreds. She could have had her pick of just about any man she wanted. There were a lot of young army officers at that time who would have given anything for a night with the princess.
    “Her modesty, courage, and devotion to duty are well known to all, but she simply never puts her