The royals - Kitty Kelley [201]
Throughout the summer of 1992 he and Sarah were seen shopping in New York City, partying in London, and dancing in Paris. Still, he insisted their relationship was strictly platonic. When Clive Goodman of News of the World asked him about a romance, Bryan snapped, “Even such a suggestion is not just rude, it’s impertinent and insulting.” By then he had moved his clothes into her closet at Romenda Lodge and put his slippers under her bed.
With military precision he began organizing her finances. A big spender himself, he said he was startled by her spending, which he calculated at $81,000 a month. He told her she was spending almost $1 million a year—far more than she was making. She shrugged. She was still the daughter-in-law of the richest woman in the world. “It was madness,” he said later, “spending for the sake of it, with no thought for the present, let alone the future.” At the time, he joked about setting up a charity called Duchess in Distress.
The financial adviser was captivated by his investment. When the writer Elizabeth Kaye compared him to Cinderella, John Bryan did not disagree. “I am like Cinderella,” he said. “It’s a kind of wonderful love story.” He fully expected to marry the Duchess after her divorce, but his friend Taki was skeptical. “It’ll never happen,” Taki predicted. “He doesn’t have enough money for Fergie.”
Making himself indispensable, Bryan supervised her investments, her vacations, her wardrobe, even her diet. “It’s very important to Johnny that Sarah look good and continue to keep her weight down,” said his mother. Nothing escaped his attention. He even arranged her furniture. He called reporters regularly to tell them about her efforts for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. He said proudly that she generated 25 percent of the charity’s income.
The grateful Duchess rewarded him with lavish gifts: a $1,500 Louis Vuitton trunk embossed with his initials; a Tag Heuer watch; Turnbull & Asser shirts with an oversize pocket for his mobile phone; a coffee machine from Harrods; silk burgundy boxer shorts; a trip to Paris; and a $20,000 birthday party under a canopy with a jukebox playing his favorite songs.
For her thirty-third birthday he reciprocated with $1,000 worth of lingerie, including a $330 teddy and a $22 garter belt.
“They tried to top each other with extravagance,” said a friend, who decided that John Bryan won with his trip to Saint-Tropez in the summer of 1992. “At least in terms of radioactive publicity.” He was alluding to the fallout from photographs that were secretly taken through the far-seeing lens of a long-range camera as the Duchess and her lover cavorted by a pool. She was without the top of her red-and-yellow-flowered bikini, and the pictures from that topless romp on France’s Côte d’Azur produced a mouthwatering scandal.
Sarah was captured on film as she lolled on a chaise alongside Bryan, whose bald head gleamed in the sun. The camera caught him lifting her foot to kiss her instep. Click. He massaged her leg, nuzzled her shoulder, and rubbed her breasts. Click. Click. She slathered suntan oil on his bald head. He climbed out of his chaise and lay on top of her. Click. Click. Click. She put her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. Click. Click. They shared a cigarette. Playing alongside them were Sarah’s two children; next to the children were their two royal protection officers, sunbathing. They later lost their jobs.
The embarrassing photos were published when Sarah was vacationing with the royal family at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. She had arrived with her estranged husband and their children for a week. On the morning of Thursday, August 20, 1992, the Duke and Duchess appeared for breakfast while the children remained in the nursery. Sarah and Andrew had been warned that the photos were to be published, but they had not seen them. So they were unprepared for the shock: the front page of the Daily Mirror featured John Bryan in swimming