Prince Harry and Cressida were snapped leaving La Salon club? two minutes after each other. Pictures: Splash Source: news.com.au
PRINCE Harry's new girlfriend Cressida Bonas is the strongest "marriage material" the young prince has dated for a long time, Harry's friends say.
When Cressida Bonas nonchalantly asked her mother whether "a friend" could pop over for lunch one Friday towards the end of last summer, there was no hint that the chap in question would be any different to the other upper-crust beaus she had dated in the past.
Luckily, her four-times-married and divorced mother, Lady Mary Gaye Curzon, who once posed for a coffee-table photographic book naked ? save for a generous helping of engine oil ? is one of those unflappable aristocratic matriarchs who takes surprises in her stride.
For when a succession of black Range Rovers roared up outside the family's ?1.3 million basement flat just off London's King's Road, out stepped Prince Harry. While the baseball-cap-clad Prince looked slightly nervous ? it was just days after his headline-grabbing naked exploits in Las Vegas ? former debutante Lady Mary simply straightened her pearls and asked whether the third-in-line to the throne would care to take tea.
"The thing about Cressie and her family is that they are used to grand people living in grand houses," one friend remarked yesterday. "It's like water off a duck's back to them. She is, you might say, properly posh."
"Cressida's last boyfriend was Harry Wentworth-Stanley, whose stepfather, George Milford Haven, is a cousin of the Queen. And she has hung around with the Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie for years.
"She isn't just familiar with Harry's world, she's part of it," the friend added.
She certainly is now, as pictures of her and the Prince enjoying some very public displays of affection in the eye-wateringly expensive Swiss ski resort of Verbier this week proved.
Cressida may not have her face on the tea towels quite yet, but she is the strongest wifely contender Harry's circle has seen for a long time. Ladbroke's already offer odds of 4/1 on the pair marrying.
Perhaps they don't realise quite what a free spirit she is. Would a young woman so open and ebullient with her affections ever feel at home with the constraints of royal life?
Hippy in dress and disposition, she is a dreamy, arty, bohemian sort who loves to spend her weekends dancing at raves.
Like Harry's most prominent ex-love, Chelsy Davy, she was educated at Stowe School and studied at Leeds University. But while Chelsy spent at least some of her time in the north with her head buried in law textbooks, Cressida spent three years doing a dance course.
Having only just turned 24 on Monday ? Harry will celebrate his 30th next year ? she is also painfully young, by modern standards, to be contemplating a life of ribbon-cutting as part of the Family Firm.
It was this prospect which made Chelsy, now 27, run for the hills. In recent months some had publicly suggested that a reunion between Harry and his ex might be on the cards. But, according to a friend who asked the Zimbabwean-born trainee solicitor recently, that is definitely not an option.
"She made it very, very clear: that ship has sailed ? and that she was glad it had," the friend said.
According to those close to Chelsy, the 2011 royal wedding ? which she attended as Harry's plus one ? was a huge wake-up call for her.
Cressida Bonas has won Prince Harry's heart, and friends say her "proper" background helps too. They say she could be a Royal Wife in waiting. Source: news.com.au
"The wedding put everything in perspective and made Chelsy finally decide to call it quits," a source close to Chelsy said. "Seeing William and Kate at the centre of such a grand occasion made her realise she could never imagining walking up the aisle with Harry, so she told him flatly that she saw no future in the two of them being together."
"What she wasn't expecting was Harry's response. He had always done the running before, but this time he told Chelsy he felt the same.
"He said she was doing him a favour by calling it a day ? that she was saving both of them from wasting any more of their lives.
"Chelsy was upset by his cool reaction, but in the end they agreed that they had lost the feelings they had once had for each other and parted amicably."
Friends revealed that afterwards Chelsy wished him well for the future. She told him ten things she loved about him, including his "lovable moodiness" (take note, Cressida), loyalty, thoughtfulness and delight in surprising her.
"But Chelsy said she felt Harry had grown distant and critical," a friend revealed. "She said she realised she would never live up to his or his family's expectations."
"The trouble is that she was genuinely scared of what it meant to be a member of the Royal Family. That was reinforced by what Kate went through before the wedding. Chelsy knew deep down that she could never be dictated to like Kate. She is too much of a free spirit."
In that, she has much in common with Harry's latest love, Cressida, who is said to be keen to pursue a career before settling down.
"Smally", as she is known to her older siblings, recently enrolled on a contemporary dance course at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich, South London, after calling time on a promising career in ballet. She also enjoys a carefree existence as the baby of one of the most glamorous fractured upper-crust families in the country. Cressida's mother, Lady Mary Gaye Georgiana Lorna Curzon, a banking heiress who was one of the most celebrated socialites of her day, is the daughter of the sixth Earl Howe, a godson of King Edward VII.
Cressida was the product of her third marriage (to Old Harrovian entrepreneur Jeffrey Bonas, which ended in divorce after six years in 1994). One of Lady Mary's other daughters (Isabella, by her second marriage to banking magnate John Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe) was once ? erroneously ? romantically linked with Prince William.
In two weeks Isabella will marry Sir Richard Branson's son and heir, Sam. She also knows Harry well, and is particularly close to his cousins, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
Indeed, Harry is believed to be attending the couple's wedding with Cressida, in the Virgin mogul's private game reserve near Kruger National Park in South Africa. Cressida's half-brother, Jacobi Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, a raffishly good-looking party animal, has also known Harry for years.
Asked whether they thought the couple had a future, one family member stressed this week that Cressida was taking things slowly.
"Cressida is determined to have some achievements behind her and I think this determination is what is uppermost in her mind," the relative said carefully.
A friend added: "They are enjoying each other's company and having fun together, but she is still young and keen to make use of her dance degree. If they are still together in a couple of years' time? Perhaps."
However, Harry has made it clear to his friends that he is becoming ever keener to settle down, particularly after seeing the happiness that his brother has found with wife Kate.
"Harry has always worn his heart on his sleeve and falls in love very easily, but I genuinely think he has started to hanker after something more," said one well-placed source. Indeed, in an interview he gave to mark his return home from Afghanistan just last month, Harry said: "Before coming out here, I was very jealous of my brother . . . he gets to go home to his wife and his dog."
Later this year, Harry will vacate the bachelor pad he currently lives in at Kensington Palace in favour of the more homely two-bedroom Nottingham Cottage, situated in the grounds of the royal residence.
Currently inhabited by his brother and sister-in-law when in London, it will be a discreet base in which to nurture his blossoming romance.
Cressida has met William and Kate, who have given their seal of approval ? not that it is needed.
But there are no plans for her to meet Charles, let alone the Queen. But it was more than four years into her relationship with Harry that Chelsy was, fleetingly, introduced to his formidable grandmother.
That said, the omens are good. Although the pair only got together at the start of last summer, they enjoyed several idyllic weeks together before Harry was sent to Afghanistan. They had fun double dates with Princess Eugenie (with whom they are holidaying in Verbier this week) and her long-term boyfriend, Jack Brooksbank.
They also visited several upmarket music festivals and went to the London premiere of last summer's Batman movie (though they took pains to walk in and out separately in a vain bid to fool photographers).
Harry wrote to and called Cressida regularly from Afghanistan. There were reports she has played it cool since his return, but there was nothing icy in her behaviour in Verbier this week.
As a result, some royal watchers are falling over themselves to suggest Harry's decision to "out" Cressida on the slopes of Switzerland, much like William once did with Kate, is a sign of how serious he is about her. But this is to woefully misunderstand the younger of the Wales brothers. The last thing Harry would do is consciously subject any girl he is seriously interested in to that kind of scrutiny.
Aside from throwing caution to the wind for one brief moment this week, Harry has been hugely careful not to be seen next to Cressida in public.
It is even understood that Harry climbed out of a window of Verbier's Casbah nightclub at 3.30am on Tuesday to avoid being pictured with her by the waiting paparazzi.
That is the biggest clue of all as to how much he likes her.
"I am sure there are thousands of girls around the world who are green with envy that Cress has 'hooked' Harry, but the truth is that he is lucky to have won her," says a friend of the student.
"You really couldn't meet anyone more fun or sweeter in nature. And she is one of the most beautiful girls ? yet totally unaware of it ? that I have ever known.
"Harry has really fallen on his feet with this one. It's early days yet, but Cressie is a keeper."
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