Kate (22 page)

No doubt the emotional upset was another contributing factor to Kate's dramatic weight loss. By mid-May, however,
William and Kate were back in touch and regularly talking on the phone. At the end of the month they secretly met up at Clarence House and at a pub close to Highgrove, where William told her he wanted to get back together. Kate didn't want to rush into anything. She had been badly hurt and told William she needed some time. According to Emma, “She was in touch with William the whole time she was training with us. She was very honest and open with me, and she always referred to William as the love of her life. He was the most important person in her life and that was very obvious. She would always speak about him very lovingly; to her he was just William. They had a very normal relationship and were very much in love. She said it was the best relationship she ever had and that when it's the two of them, it is perfect. It's when they are in the public eye it gets so complicated.”

Back at Jigsaw's head office, Kate's colleagues noticed that she was spending more time on her mobile phone, talking in private outside the office in the parking lot. The start of June 2007 marked a pivotal moment. Kate and William had been invited to a party thrown by their mutual friend Sam Waley-Cohen at his family's seventeenth-century manor house, and according to one guest, they spent “hours” deep in conversation. “There's an idea that I was like Cupid with a bow and arrow. People love the idea that somebody put them back together, but they put themselves together far more,” Mr. Waley-Cohen recalled of the night in an interview with the
Mail on Sunday
.

William pleaded with Kate to give their relationship another go, and by the time he invited her to a party on June 9 at his barracks in Dorset, she had made her mind up. Dressed as a nurse—a rather sexy one in fishnet tights and a short dress,
for a Freakin' Naughty–themed fancy dress party—William followed her around “like a lost puppy,” according to one guest who said they stayed on the dance floor most of the night. As the clock struck midnight, William leaned in and kissed Kate. “They couldn't keep their hands off each other,” recalled the eyewitness. “William didn't care that people were looking. His friends were joking that they should get a room.” William didn't need any persuading and took Kate by the hand and led her out of the party.

When she returned to training the following week, she was noticeably happier, according to Emma, one of the few people who knew about the reconciliation. The clandestine reunion didn't stay a secret for long, however, and before the month was out, the
Mail on Sunday
reported that the couple was back together.

At the Palace the news came as no surprise. For some weeks, eagle-eyed courtiers had been observing Kate's Audi coming and going from its reserved spot at Clarence House. She was in residence whenever William was home from Dorset, and as well as spending some quality time with him, she had been helping him finalize the running order for a concert he and Harry had planned to commemorate the life of their mother. The summer of 2007 marked the tenth anniversary of the princess's death, and the concert was to be a celebration of her life. While Harry had been in Canada on military training exercise, William had overseen and approved the all-star lineup for the Wembly concert. The night before, Kate had slipped unnoticed into Clarence House to help William make the final tweaks to his speech.

The princes had reserved the entire Royal Box for their family and friends, but in order not to deflect from the purpose
of the day, William and Kate agreed not to sit together. Instead, Kate sat next to James and Pippa, now nursing her own broken heart after breaking up with her long-term boyfriend, JJ Jardine Patterson. Before the start of the concert, William had been quizzed about his on-off relationship with Kate during an interview with the NBC
Today
show and had managed to field the question well. A worldwide audience was tuned in to watch the concert, and he desperately didn't want it to be eclipsed by speculation about him and Kate.

Later, while Harry openly kissed his on-and-off Zimbabwean girlfriend Chelsy Davy in the front row, William and Kate were careful not to make eye contact, though when Kate sang along to Take That's “Back for Good,” she allowed herself a momentary glance at William. It wasn't long until they could be together, away from the gaze of the media at the VIP after-party. According to one eyewitness, William couldn't take his eyes off Kate's revealing white lace dress and knee-high boots. They danced to the Bodyrockers' hit “I Like the Way You Move,” which, according to friends was “their song,” and they were later spotted canoodling in a dark corner. However, determined not to be photographed together, they went home separately at 4:00
A.M
. the following morning.

Just days after the concert Kate was back at the helm, and with race day fast approaching, the Sisterhood's challenge was now headline news. With rumors buzzing that the couple had reunited, the paparazzi attended every training session, and the Palace was concerned that the event was becoming a “media circus.” Once again, Kate had become the story, and when she appeared on the cover of
Hello
magazine posing with her teammates in their dragon boat beneath the headline, “Posing Exclusively for
Hello
with Her Crewmates,” alarm bells rang at
the Palace. Fully made up and beaming for the camera, Kate was accused of double standards in the press. One of her lawyers, Gerrard Tyrrell, had complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the level of harassment Kate was subjected to, yet here she was seemingly happy to take part in a promotional photo shoot. The late
Daily Mirror
journalist Sue Carroll suggested she was being “driven by the oxygen of publicity,” while
Daily Mail
columnist Richard Kay noted that “the Sisterhood's practice sessions had become a magnet for publicity.” The timing was unfortunate. The issue of the paparazzi's relentless pursuit of Kate had formed part of a landmark report by Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee, titled “Self-Regulation of the Press.” The report, published in July 2007, concluded that with regard to Kate, “harassment was evident” and editors could no longer use paparazzi pictures of her. The watershed moment had been her twenty-fifth birthday, when she was besieged by photographers outside her London home. The committee described Kate as the victim of “clear and persistent harassment” by the paparazzi. It was a major victory for Kate, her lawyers, and the Palace, but her participation in the now very public dragon boat race posed a serious dilemma and threatened to undo all their efforts in protecting Kate. She could not have it both ways, and according to Emma, the Palace advised her to pull out of the race.

“When the magazine came to photograph us at one of our training sessions, I'd already told them Kate wouldn't be in the picture, but when the day came, she was actually relaxed and wanted to be in on the team photograph. The magazine cropped Kate out and put her on the front page and made it the ‘Kate Story' with a whole six pages about her on the inside.
Kate was devastated. At the next training session, there were forty photographers and it was a nightmare. The whole thing was becoming a media circus, and Kate said she was under a lot of pressure to pull out by Clarence House. I thought it was a great shame and I actually told her I thought she was making a mistake . . . because it was the one chance Kate could prove to the world who she really was.”

While her “sisters” rowed twenty-one miles across the English Channel that August, Kate paddled with William in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa. They had flown out to the luxury island of Desroches in the Seychelles for what they both knew was a make-or-break holiday. The prince had booked a $750-per-night private bungalow, and in order not to be recognized, they checked in as Martin and Rosemary Middleton. It was the perfect escape, and they spent the days swimming, taking kayaks out to the coral reef, and dining together on the terrace of their private villa. It was the first time they had been alone since their breakup, and they spent much of the holiday hidden away in the privacy of their beachfront bungalow. They had plenty to discuss. William was nearing the end of his training with the Blues and Royals and would be graduating as a troop commander in September, which effectively meant he was qualified to go to war like his younger brother, who was being posted to Afghanistan at Christmas. Harry had been due to go to Iraq that summer, but the tour of duty was canceled after Islamic militants vowed to kill him. It was exactly the reason that William, as heir apparent, could never be posted to the front line, despite his determination to be treated the same as every other soldier. As the future head of the Armed Forces, he would be assigned to work for each of the forces instead.

Kate knew that William wanted to serve in the military more than anything else. She understood that it was his means of having a sense of purpose—to serve his Queen and country meant everything to him, and she respected and supported him. But she had to think about her own future, too. She knew William was committed to the military, but what about his commitment to her? She needed some assurance that one day they would marry, if they planned to stay together. They had weathered their most serious split to date, and she needed to know that they shared the same aspiration—ultimately to be together. There on the paradise island, William promised Kate that he was in the relationship for the long term. For the very first time they talked seriously about marriage, and with the ocean before them and beneath the night sky, they made a pact to marry. “They didn't agree to get married there and then; what they made was a pact,” a member of their inner circle explained. “William told Kate she was the one but he was not ready to get married. He promised her his commitment and said he would not let her down, and she in turn agreed to wait for him.”

William was due to spend six months on attachment with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy, and he would be away for much of the time. Kate listened carefully. She knew the sacrifices the future would entail, but she loved William and was prepared to wait for him. They sealed their secret deal with a kiss.

Back in England, William completed his tank-training course while Kate used the new chapter in her life to assess her own career. She had been working at Jigsaw for nearly a year, and although she was happy, she wasn't doing a job she was passionate about. Her real interest was in photography,
and so, after talking to Belle Robinson, she handed in her notice in September. Kate had acquired an impressive portfolio of her own photographs during her travels, and she had started collating her work. According to Emma, “She talked about going abroad and pursuing a career in photography. She was considering going to Paris and also New York.”

Now that she and William were back together, heading overseas was a less attractive option, so instead she approached the esteemed celebrity photographer Alistair Morrison, who was based in Windsor and whose work she had admired at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Mr. Morrison invited Kate to his gallery: “She was interested in photography and the history of art and she got in touch with me,” said Mr. Morrison. “I was based in Windsor, and she was at her parents' home a lot, which was just down the motorway. She would often come to visit me at the gallery. I think I was seen as someone who could look after her interests and be discreet.” When Kate said she wanted to curate an exhibition, Mr. Morrison suggested that she start with a series of his celebrity photographs. Kate's timing was fortuitous, and she was available to start work immediately. She spent several weeks coordinating the photographs and then worked on planning a party to launch the exhibition. She asked the Robinsons if they would allow her to use The Shop at Bluebird in Chelsea. “Catherine organized everything from the invitations to the selection of work and put together a guest list for the launch which included collectors, my list, the Bluebird's list and her own, including her family and friends,” said Mr. Morrison.

Carole, Michael, and James came to the opening party, but William stayed away until the end of the evening, not wishing
to upstage his girlfriend. “Prince William joined us for dinner,” confirmed Mr. Morrison, who was so impressed with Kate's work he continued to mentor her afterward. “I encouraged her to pursue her photography, specifically some wonderful landscape work that she had done over her travels. At the same time I introduced her to my printers, as she was naturally keen to see some good quality prints of her work. She has a natural eye for landscape composition and uses light very well, often focusing on images heavily dominated by skies at all times of the day. Color was always her preference. Most of her work is a mixture of many locations and is almost exclusively sky dominated. I encouraged her not to generalize but to think about documenting one area through a number of different landscapes.”

By now Kate had pretty much moved out of her Chelsea apartment and was mostly living at Clarence House. The prince, who had moved from Dorset back to Combermere Barracks in Windsor, was in London more frequently, and once again rumors of an engagement circulated. As 2007 came to a close, a public opinion poll in Britain found that 80 percent of Britons believed that Kate would be a good addition to the royal family, while courtiers at the Palace reverted to the forward-planning diary for potential dates. There was no doubt that Kate was back in the fold when she joined the royals' annual festive pheasant shoot at Windsor Park just before Christmas. She had been criticized by animal rights campaigners after being photographed deer hunting with Prince Charles in Scotland, but Kate had no intention of giving it up. She enjoyed the sport and often hunted with William, something she loved because it was a quiet and peaceful time for the two of them to be together.