Kate begs William: Don't leave me

Grey hairs, sleepless nights and endless tears… the fairytale has soured for the Duchess of Cambridge, as she prepares for a long separation from her Prince Charming.

During the London premiere of his film War Horse, Steven Spielberg noticed Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, dabbing at her eyes. The director’s wife saw the waterworks too, offering the weeping royal some tissues from her handbag. Steven chalked up Kate’s tears to the emotion of the movie, but friends say the brunette beauty has been crying for weeks.

She is struggling to cope with her upcoming separation from Prince William, who leaves for a six-week stint with the Royal Air Force in the Falkland Islands next month. The film simply brought to the surface the reality of life as a military wife, one close source tells Woman’s Day. “She’d prepared herself for the stress of the royal wedding, but she had no idea that things would get worse afterwards.” The strain is so great, we’re told Kate has been getting just a few hours of sleep a night.

Much to her horror, she’s also discovered a few grey hairs – her friends have dubbed them “stress highlights” – which she hides with organic vegetable-based dye, applied during four-hour sessions at the Richard Ward Hair & Metrospa in London. Kate was understood to be distressed at the thought of spending Valentine’s Day alone in cold, wet, windy Wales while her husband is 12,000km away in the Falklands.

But the news got worse for her on the day of her 30th birthday last week, when it was revealed that soon after his return, Wills will be sent on one of the air force’s most dangerous assignments – a search and rescue manoeuvre in the North Sea that has seen several casualties. Speaking exclusively to Woman’s Day, one of the prince’s air force colleagues reveals, “Wills was annoyed that his North Sea orders arrived on Kate’s 30th, as that’s the one mission that all the search and rescue pilots and their wives know could be fatal.”