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Their romance did not catch fire, however, until last July, when Diana visited Balmoral Castle. Strolling through the sunlit highlands and fishing for salmon with Diana at his side, the Prince says, "I began to realize what was going on in my mind and hers in particular." By the time she was invited back in September, the press had also begun to realize what was going on in both their minds. Reporters and photographers were soon on the trail of "Shy Di," the easily blushing prospective Princess.
She was photographed at the Ludlow racecourse cheering on the bonnie Prince. She was surrounded at the London flat that she shared with three other young women. To her horror, she was snapped holding one of her charges at the nursery school where she taught, the sun at her back clearly outlining her legs and thighs through a diaphanous skirt. That caused a sensation, but it was only the beginning. Fleet Street's overheated tabloids, used to concocting royal "romances" on the scantiest of evidence—a day at the races with Lady Camilla Fane, a chat at the polo grounds with Secretary Jane Ward—regularly made up quotes and printed rumors. Diana was ambushed by paparazzi while riding in her car and reduced to tears. Finally, a story in the Sunday Mirror alleged that she had been trysting with the Prince on the royal family's private train. That was the last straw. Her mother, the Honorable Mrs. Shand-Kydd, fired off a letter to the Times. "Is it necessary or fair to harass my daughter daily, from dawn until well after dusk?" she asked. Then the palace took the almost unprecedented step of demanding a retraction of the "love train" story. It did not get one, but chastened editors informally agreed among themselves to ease up on Lady Di.
The newspapers left her alone from early December until New Year's, but then the prospect of snaring Charles' beloved on a visit to Sandringham proved entirely too tempting. The sight of newsmen trampling in the woods of what has always been an off-limits winter retreat enraged the usually imperturbable Queen. "I wish you would go away," she snapped at photographers. That extraordinary crack in her regal facade gave credence to a rumor that surfaced in early February to the effect that Elizabeth had presented her son with an ultimatum to marry Diana by this summer, or not at all. Reportedly she had said: "The idea of this romance going on for another year is intolerable to everyone concerned."
But the flash of cameras, the growls of newshounds, the whisper of rumors are very much a part of royal life. Lady Diana's "baptism by fire, with the press as high priest," editorialized the Yorkshire Post, "was almost a planned test." And, the paper added, she "has shown herself fit to be a Queen."