会合，会う the sister and childhood 競争相手 that Camilla 簡単に can't do without... even if it does 伴う／関わる a £103,000 料金

By GEOFFREY LEVY and RICHARD KAY
Updated: 21:25 BST, 5 July 2008

Looks aside, they could scarcely be いっそう少なく alike. So why DOES the Duchess 支払う／賃金 her oh-so 控えめの childhood 競争相手 £103,000 a year?

She was younger, prettier and brainier, 同様に as 存在 fundamentally more serene and 'nicer' than her brasher sister.

Not a girl, it was said, 'to throw her knickers on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する'. But life isn't always fair. So it was no surprise this week that in London's smarter salons the 指名する of Annabel Elliot was 存在 について言及するd in トンs that were a mixture of sympathy and envy.

The Duchy of Cornwall, which 供給するs Prince Charles with a multi-millionaire's lifestyle, had just published its 最新の accounts and の中で them? -? by no means for the first time? -? was Annabel Elliot's 指名する.

It cropped up in relation to 支払い（額） of £103,000 for 'consultancy 料金s' and 供給するing furniture and furnishings for work carried out on several of the Duchy's holiday cottages, 同様に as on the Prince's new hideaway in むちの跡s.?

Annabel (left) is so の近くに to her sister Camilla that she even …を伴ってd her on her 王室の honeymoon

Annabel is an 遂行するd 内部の designer and antiques 売買業者. Her 年上の sister, Camilla, has, of course, risen to become HRH the Duchess of Cornwall.

'A few crumbs from her big sister's （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する,' is how one long-time family friend spikily 述べるs the consultancy work.

More than crumbs. In 最近の years, …を伴ってd by cries of cronyism and nepotism, Annabel has designed the 内部のs of 12 of the Duchy of Cornwall's holiday cottages dotted around the country from Hereford to the I sles of Scilly and which are 利用できる to rent.

It is a 相当な part of the 最近の income of Annabel Elliot Ltd, run from a small 産業の 部隊 近づく Salisbury, Wiltshire, rented from the 会議 for some £300 a month.

But even if it were true that Camilla is helping her sister (and Annabel, 18 months younger, is certainly talented enough to have 得るd the （売買）手数料，委託（する）／委員会／権限s on 長所 alone), it would barely 返す her for shouldering so much of the 演劇 of Camilla's 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の life.

'She was sucked into it, and rather resented it as she had her own life to lead,' says a friend.

Both sisters married around the same time? -? Annabel, when 23, in 1972 to her first real boyfriend, Simon Elliot, whose late father Sir William was an 空気／公表する 長，指導者 保安官 of the RAF; Camilla at 25 in 1973, to dashing Army officer Andrew Parker Bowles.

Through the その後の, seemingly endless years when Camilla and Charles were secret lovers, it was the country home of Annabel and Simon in the Dorset village of Stourpaine that was the Prince and Mrs Parker Bowles's favourite 会合 place for 控えめの romantic 週末s.

In December 1992, Annabel was at the wheel of the car that 素早い行動d Camilla away and out of public 見解（をとる） when John Major 発表するd in the ありふれたs the 分離 of the Prince and Princess of むちの跡s.

It was at Annabel's 40th birthday party (held at the home of her friend Lady Annabel Goldsmith, 未亡人 of 大君 Sir James) that Princess Diana 直面するd Camilla about her 関係 with Charles.

And it was at Annabel's 50th birthday party at the Ritz Hotel when her sister stole the limelight by 'coming out' as Charles's mistress, the couple using the occasion to 提起する／ポーズをとる for their first public pictures together on the hotel steps.

So 充てるd: Camilla Parker-Bowles (権利) and her sister Annabel Elliot (left) at the wedding of Alice Elliot, Camilla Parker Bowles niece, in Stourpaine, Dorset

Prince Charles has many faults but he is also a man of consummate 感謝 に向かって those who do him 親切s. In the circumstances, it is surely no surprise that Annabel's husband, Simon, a いわゆる 'wheeler-売買業者' whose 普及した 商売／仕事 and 所有物／資産／財産 利益／興味s stretch to the Middle East, is also said to 利益 from the Prince's patronage.

Charles is understood to have …に出席するd a number of Middle Eastern 外交の 機能（する）／行事s with the man who was to become his 未来 brother-in-法律. He is said, in particular, to have …に出席するd several Lebanese 機能（する）／行事s in London so as to 'bestow a status on Simon'.

Mr Elliot was a friend of the assassinated Lebanese 首相 Rafik Hariri and is understood to have engineered a 会合 between him and the Prince at Highgrove.

一方／合間, the sisters' lives are so entwined that the Elliots …を伴ってd Charles and Camilla on honeymoon to Birkhall in Scotland, where staff laid the wedding-night （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する for four.

And they were also in Antigua with Camilla in March, keeping her spirits up, before the Duchess had to join Charles on that ill-運命／宿命d 公式の／役人 巡航する in the Caribbean islands (the £210,000 高級な charted ヨット paid for by the taxpayer) when Camilla turned out to be a sickly sailor.

No one had 警告するd the Duchess just how 窒息させるing life at sea in the 限定するd space of a 私的な ヨット would be with the curmudgeonly and pernickety Prince of むちの跡s.

Annabel, who is 公式文書，認めるd as much for her bound by Geoffrey 徴収する and Richa rd Kay いっそう少なく energy as Camilla is for her laziness, believes it is difficult for her sister 存在 a 王室の duchess.

'She feels Camilla is 罠にかける,' says one of their circle. 'She certainly wouldn't want to change places with her.'

Ironically, that is 正確に what some 観察者／傍聴者s felt she did want to do when they were young.

'Annabel was the prettier one but Camilla was the sexier of the two, and men 設立する her attractive,' 解任するs one former debs' delight.

While Camilla was having fun 急ぐing from one party to another, Annabel, who has a much more serious turn of mind, had already 選ぶd for a quieter life, though when she heard of her big sister's escapades she 'resented the difference in their lifestyles? -? wouldn't any sister?'

Even now, some 40 years later, those painful memories of 存在 second best are still with her. Earlier this year, she was reminiscing about their debutante days and 解任するing that Camilla, who was a deb a year ahead of her, 'was a 広大な／多数の／重要な success, but I certainly wasn't. I probably wasn't やめる as 確信して as her'.

によれば insiders, Annabel might be prettier but it was Camilla who was the sexier of the sisters

Camilla, although a trifle plumper than her younger sister, was more 運動競技の and liked riding. Annabel learned to ride but never 株d her sister's enthusiasm for the 追跡（する）.

'Annabel was more intelligent than Camilla? -? she has a good brain and an 問い合わせing mind,' says a school 同時代の .

'And she always had such good taste that she would have made a perfect duchess, which you can't 本気で say about Camilla.'

While Camilla 急落（する），激減（する）d into the whirl of the Sixties London social scene, Annabel went to Italy to 熟考する／考慮する art and fell in love? -? not with a man, but with Florence.

Unlike the brash Camilla, who loved entertaining attentive young men with the 最新の risque joke, and was 悪名高くも frank about her 関係s, Annabel was quieter and more 控えめの.

She was also fascinated by the 黒人／ボイコット sheep of their family, 広大な／多数の／重要な Aunt Violet Trefusis? -? who, as a 十代の少年少女, was 伴う／関わるd in a lesbian 事件／事情／状勢 with the writer Vita Sackville-West, which scandalised society? -? and against parental advice, visited her in Florence.

Annabel was 公式文書，認めるd for having boys の中で her friends but not 'boyfriends', until she met Simon Elliot at a wedding and began to go out with him? -? her first boyfriend and still, after 36 years and three children, her husband.

明確に, if either of the sisters was going to find her way into the young and thrusting Prince of むちの跡s's bed, it was going to be Camilla.

All these years later, friends say that Annabel, now 58, can still hardly believe that the covert 事件／事情／状勢 she and husband Simon 保護するd for so long could have 最高潮に達するd in her sister marrying the Prince of むちの跡s and that, at some time in the 未来, she could find herself the Queen's sister.

The sibling 競争 that 存在するd between them as children and then as debutantes, is still there.

But Camilla's elevation to HRH has not created any envy in her sister, any more than it has brought much 楽しみ to Camilla herself.

'I'm not impressed by what's happened to my sister,' Annabel 発表するd 堅固に, 'and I'm certainly not going to 扱う／治療する her any 異なって.'

非，不，無 of her friends were too surprised to hear it, because Annabel and Simon Elliot were already 行為／行うing themselves in a ネズミ her grandiose manner, 大部分は because of their long-time closeness to the late Queen Mother.

'What people don't know is that they were guests of Queen Elizabeth up in Scotland when Camilla was still not welcome because of her 事件／事情／状勢 with Charles,' says an old friend of the Elliots.

Indeed, some people （刑事）被告 the Elliots then of 貿易（する）ing on their 王室の 関係s, just as they 告発する／非難する them of doing it now.

But Annabel and her sister have always been の近くに, and she was 影響する／感情d more than anyone by Camilla's 最近の lament to a friend about Charles: 'We don't seem to have much fun any more.'

Camilla paid her sister a £103,000 料金 in 'consultancy 料金s'

The cry （機の）カム at about the time Charles relapsed into an 空気／公表する of gloom, 大部分は because of the milestone, passed in January, of becoming the country's longest waiting 相続人 to the 王位? -? the 記録，記録的な／記録する was 59 years and 74 days held by his 広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な grandfather Edward VII.

'In the old days, when he felt glum he could run to Camilla. Now she's his wife, her pacifying 質s don't seem to やめる work in the way they did,' says a courtier.

It has meant an ますます intimate and important 役割 for Annabel, 同様に as for Simon, in the lives of the Prince of むちの跡s and the Duchess of Cornwall.

They are たびたび（訪れる） guests at Clarence House, Highgrove and Birkhall, and it is 平易な to see why.

More than ever now, Annabel and her husband 代表する the good old days when the emotion al 魔法 of Camilla and Charles was at its 高さ, the days that produced the Camillagate tape with the lovers' tantalising each other with 天然のまま 自白s of 願望（する）.

'The humour still flows when Camilla and her sister are together because they 誘発する off each other,' 観察するs one of their oldest friends, 'and these days Camilla seems to need more of her sister's company than ever.'

She sent for Annabel to be with her on the night before she made her 公約するs at Windsor 登録（する） office on April 9, 2005.

The two sisters stayed at Windsor 城 and Annabel is said to have been 'hilariously funny', which was important because Camilla was so nervous.

Annabel, 一方／合間, is spreading her professional wings and has been （売買）手数料，委託（する）／委員会／権限d to create the 内部の of her first hotel, the 課すing Bovey 城 in Devon that used to be owned by Peter de Savary and is now 存在 developed by 所有物／資産／財産 大君 Jamie Ritblat.

Her sister the Duchess, though, remains her unfinished work.

'The Elliots are Camilla's safety 弁,' says a friend. 'I don't know what she'd do without them.'