The Accidental Duchess. ‘As if I was fighting for breath… I knew that something life-changing had just happened.’ Born a farmer’s daughter on the Welsh borders, she had learnt how to be a duchess over the preceding decade, taking over the running of the castle, which has more than 200 rooms, and 16,000-acre estate, turning it into a thriving commercial enterprise.
Belvoir (pronounced Beaver) became her life, her vocation, her second great love after her husband – so after that discovery on his birthday, she had no idea what to do.It wasn’t the Duke’s first dalliance, but it was different, as by now the couple had five children.
In the dark days that followed she would shut herself in the dining room to ‘smoke cigarettes, drink wine and dance [alone] to I Will Survive.’ At first she told nobody. ‘Through any form of difficulty, this is just [my] pattern, my friends most probably wouldn’t know there is anything wrong… I am very private… I don’t share.’A divorce lawyer told her she could expect to walk away with £30 million.
But having overseen the estate’s finances for so long, she knew that would destroy Belvoir and that the house would end up being sold or turned into a ‘soulless conference centre’.‘As a farmer’s daughter, I believed that heritage was more important than hurt feelings – a belief that both farmers and aristocrats have in common,’ she writes.
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