Prince William and Kate Middleton had an incredibly romantic Valentine’s Day dinner after getting back together following their shocking 2007 split, RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal.
Their first butler, Grant Harrold, writes about the intimate moment he was witness to in his new memoir, The Royal Butler. He met the royal couple in 2004, after Harrold began working for King Charles III, who was still Prince Charles at the time.
Before She Became A Princess
Harrold got to watch the couple’s romance blossom after William, 43, and Middleton, 43, began dating while students at Scotland’s St. Andrew’s University, and recalls how lovely the future queen was.
He was working at Highgrove, Charles’s country estate in Gloucestershire, England, when Middleton joined William there.
“I was downstairs in the butler’s pantry when they came in. Again, it was all very relaxed and informal as I introduced myself, and she replied, ‘I’m Kate.’ She was very polite, sweet, and personable, and, back then, was always referred to as Kate, as opposed to Catherine,” Harrold describes in the book.
Too Much Pressure?
Harrold says he was devastated when William and Middleton shockingly broke up three years later.
“When they’d split up in January 2007, I had no idea. The first I knew was when I read about it in the press. I was absolutely gutted, but it wasn’t my place or business to say anything to him about it,” Harrold writes, referring to William.
The butler-turned-royal commentator believes the pressures of being a young couple in the spotlight might have gotten to Middleton and the prince.
“I did wonder if they had taken a break to try to get the media to back off them, because the attention on them was awful. It must have been so hard to deal with that,” he speculates.
“I was really upset, because they were so sweet together. When they got back together eight months later, I did tell them how happy I was for them and what an amazing couple they were,” Harrold reveals. “As far as I was concerned, for the time they were apart, there was no sign of anyone else. Kate was always the one.”
First Romantic Dinner Post-Split
To celebrate their first Valentine’s Day after getting back together, William finally took Harrold up on his offer to serve the couple a formal dinner, where he would act as their butler.
“I’d been suggesting this for years, and they always laughed it off, saying they didn’t want any fuss. But then one day, out of the blue, he suddenly said, ‘OK, let’s have dinner, if you’re happy to,'” Harrold writes of the prince.
He explains: “This wasn’t just going to be any ordinary dinner. It was going to be on Valentine’s Day, as far as I knew, the first time the young couple had been able to enjoy such a romantic meal.”
“What made it extra special was that they had now been back together for nearly six months after their well-publicized break-up, and they seemed closer than ever,” the butler observed about the couple at the time.
Gorgeous Setting
William and Harrold planned the Valentine’s dinner at Highgrove to be outside despite the “typically chilly February evening.”
The table was set at the top of the famed and idyllic Thyme Walk, which Harrold lovingly describes as “the stunning avenue of clipped golden yew and herb bushes bound on two sides by a pleached hornbeam hedge that leads down to the lily pond at the bottom.”
Harrold briefed the chef about the meal and laid out the table for the lovebirds.
“The dinner was really nice, and what was sweet was that William and Kate both kept chatting to me throughout. It was very intimate, and afterward they went inside to thank the chef for the meal,” he shares.
The romantic holiday meal marked the beginning of the couple’s journey to their October 2010 engagement, followed by their magnificent fairytale royal wedding in April 2011.
William is now first in line to the throne, behind his father, while the pair’s children, Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, 7, are next in line after their dad.
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