How Sophie's become the Queen's favourite
In favour: Sophie shares a strong bond with the Queen
She was humiliated after boasting she was the Royal Family's saviour - and mocking the Queen as 'the old dear'. So why is Sophie now the one woman her mother-in-law really trusts?
The voices at the end of the telephone were as excited as those of any new parents-to-be.
Talking on speakerphone to ensure they could both deliver their news together, Prince Edward and his wife Sophie could barely contain their joy as they rang family and friends last week to make their announcement.
"We've got some wonderful news," they said in unison, giggling down the telephone.
"We're having another baby." It was a call that both had feared they would never be able to make, although Sophie in particular had never given up hope that she would have the second child she longed for.
She was, she had told friends over recent months, trusting in fate, despite the difficulties she endured with her previous pregnancies - an ectopic pregnancy two years after she married and an emergency Caesarean to deliver her daughter, Lady Louise, now three, which left both of their lives in danger.
Happily that trust has paid off, and the Countess is now three months pregnant - a natural conception, too, according to friends, and without the aid of the IVF that had proved so debilitating both emotionally and physically.
The news has left the couple "fizzing with delight", not to mention affording them a brief spell back in the limelight after what by any standards has been something of a self-imposed purdah.
Certainly, aside from their often extremely low-key royal engagements, little has been seen or heard of either Edward or Sophie in the past two years - they have been "completely off the radar", as one society magazine source dismissively put it this week - but that is exactly the way they have planned it.
Their low-profile lifestyle has come as something of a surprise for those who remember Sophie as a once dedicated career woman (her former business partner, Murray Harkin, has said that he feels "as if her true character is slowly being extinguished" by marriage into the Royal Family) - but then motherhood, it must be said, has changed the 42-year-old Countess beyond recognition.
The woman who once privately proclaimed herself the "saviour" of the Royal Family, the working wife who would become its modern face, has instead become the opposite, a dutiful royal who juggles motherhood with the rituals of ribbon-cutting and teatime engagements, a feature of the weekly calendar of many less high-profile royals.
And in doing so, she has also made herself a firm favourite of the Queen, who is said to have come to rely on Sophie as a "solid and trustworthy" member of "The Firm" (she was "delighted" on learning last week she is to be a grandmother for the eighth time).
It has not all been plain sailing, it must be said: aside from her pregnancy problems, the Countess has weathered both a media storm and her private unhappiness over her decision to step away from her professional life as a public relations executive.
As founder of public relations firm RJH, she had been determined to combine married life with her work. It was not to be.
Just two years into her marriage, the Countess was caught in a sting by an undercover reporter posing as an Arab sheikh.
Sophie with Edward and Lady Louise
He used the promise of a lucrative business deal to lure her into making wildly indiscreet comments about her new in-laws (she allegedly called the Queen "the old dear", insulted the Prince of Wales and compared herself to Princess Diana).
The fallout left the Countess "distraught", and frequently in tears. It also marked a critical turning point. Turning her back on her business interests, Sophie realised if her marriage was to work she must make a success of her royal duties instead - a decision she made, according to those who know her well - decidedly reluctantly.
"With hindsight I think we can see that Sophie did develop a case of 'red carpet fever' when she got together with Edward.
"She became caught up with being a member of the Royal Family and the influence it brings," one source said.
"She once remarked that she was the 'second lady of the land' and at times she could act like it too.
"It seemed like hubris, and she was rather brought back down to earth with a bump."
Nonetheless, her recovery was assisted, according to royal sources, by the natural affection the Queen has for the wife of her youngest son (always her favourite child, by all accounts).
She retained a "soft spot" for Sophie throughout her troubles and their relationship was not unduly damaged by the 'fake sheikh' debacle.
In the intervening years, they have developed a warm and loving relationship, one that has grown even closer since the Countess lost her own mother Mary to cancer 18 months ago.
There have been jealousies, however, from others who have not felt the favour of the Monarch so warmly.
"Some people have accused Sophie of sucking up to the Queen, and I think there is an element of self-preservation in the way she has behaved since the fake sheikh debacle," says one royal source.
"It has been hard for the Duchess of York, for example, who has spent the past decade working tirelessly to right the wrongs of the past but has never been remotely forgiven.
Edward and Sophie's second baby is due in December
"Sophie and Edward, on the other hand, cannot put a foot wrong nowadays and the Countess really is the apple of the Queen's eye."
Among most of the women at court, Sophie is the one ally with whom Her Majesty has an easy accord, as another source explains: "The Queen will never have an easy relationship with the Duchess of Cornwall, although they have turned quite a significant corner.
"As for Andrew - well he never stays with a woman long enough for them to be introduced. So Sophie is all she has."
Her majesty is said to have provided a sympathetic ear to Sophie concerning her desire for another child, during their regular horseback rides round Windsor Great Park, and during afternoon tea together - the Queen is not averse to arriving at Sophie's home, Bagshot Park in Surrey, unannounced.
A doting grandparent, she has more time on her hands to spend with Louise - who, incidentally, is the spitting image of the Queen as a toddler - than she did when her own children were growing up.
The extent of her affection for her daughter-in-law can be measured by the fact that she chose a photograph of herself with Edward and Sophie to illustrate her Christmas card two years ago, not to mention her unusual decision to pay a secret visit to Sophie when she was recovering in hospital following Louise's traumatic birth.
As one royal insider explains: "This was unprecedented. The Queen doesn't even visit people when they are on their deathbeds."
And there is a wider significance to all this, some believe. When the Queen was voted the Greatest Living Briton, in May, she chose the Earl to receive the award on her behalf.
One courtier reveals: "He is being groomed to take over the Duke of Edinburgh's duties when Philip dies. The Queen views Philip as her rock and says she couldn't have lasted 55 years on the throne without him.
"She sees Edward as able to take up his mantle and Sophie as his support."
Not a bad resurrection, then, for a woman who for a time was at the centre of her own PR disaster. That is not to say that on occasion Sophie has not felt the constraints of her new life.
"I don't think the past few years have been as easy for her as they seem," one friend reveals.
"She didn't exactly relish the idea of spending her life shaking hands and cutting ribbons. After owning her own PR business, it wasn't a fulfilling prospect.
"But she has slowly come to realise that she can get involved with her charities behind the scenes and she has used her experience in the PR industry to help them, rather than being just a remote figurehead.
"She does get frustrated by all the meeting and greeting but she knows she has a very distinct role and is relatively happy now to work within the confines it dictates."
And of course, there have been other things occupying the Countess' mind in recent years: the difficult, emotionally fraught quest to have a second child.
After failing to conceive again naturally following the birth of Louise in 2004, Edward and Sophie turned to IVF, receiving treatment at London's private Lister Hospital.
Following a number of unsuccessful attempts, they decided they had put themselves through enough, and would leave it to nature.
While outwardly stoic, it has been, at times, emotionally devastating for Sophie.
"Quite a few women staff at the Palace have had babies over the last couple of years and she admitted to having quite a bad case of 'bump envy'," one source reports.
"You could see when she looked at them how much she desperately wished it was her."
Now her wish has been granted, with a brother or sister for Louise (the Wessexes will not find out the sex beforehand, in keeping with royal tradition) due in December.
The couple's delight is, of course, tempered by the difficulties of Sophie's last pregnancy, and doctors will be taking extreme care to make sure the Countess avoids the complications that plagued her last time round, when she collapsed with abdominal pains at the family home.
Whisked to hospital, she had an emergency Caesarean and lost a considerable amount of blood.
Her condition was so serious at one stage she was said to be 20 minutes from death, while her daughter was transferred to a specialist neo-natal unit.
As a result, her gynaecologist has, the Mail understands, told Sophie that she must pace herself this time, particularly given her age.
That said, Sophie has told friends and family that she does not want to be too cosseted, and it will be "business as usual" as far as possible, with engagements until the end of October.
Once the child is born, the couple will continue to co-ordinate their diaries to ensure that at least one of them is at home at any one time, although they do of course have a nanny.
Undoubtedly their desire to be hands-on parents has been underlined by the fragility of their first born. Louise was born with exotropia, an eye condition that left her with one eye turning outwards.
While corrective surgery was available, her parents were racked with indecision about placing their daughter under anaesthetic, but she has undergone an operation which appears to have resolved the problem.
Sophie and Edward are determined their daughter should have as normal an upbringing as possible, which is why they refused her an HRH title. She will, friends say, appear on the balcony at Buckingham Palace with them one day - but not soon.
And so for now, Edward and Sophie get on with a life that is, in many ways unexpectedly humdrum, were it not for the grand backdrop of their home, a mansion of 50 rooms amid 78 acres, in which the couple and their handful of staff are said to "rattle around".
Sophie works three days a week, while Edward has a fuller diary of engagements which he juggles with that of his wife.
At home, life remains low key. The couple spend much of their time "pottering", playing with their daughter and walking their dogs, Piper and Otter.
Sophie enjoys gardening, while both she and her husband are keen riders and are teaching their daughter.
This summer, the couple celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary - something of an unexpected achievement, it must be said, given that before Sophie came along many had surmised that Edward was "not the marrying kind". The way their relationship and lifestyle has unfolded is, perhaps, not quite what the once fiercely ambitious Sophie might have imagined. But it has ultimately brought her great happiness.
How Sophie's become the Queen's favourite | the Daily Mail
How Countess Sophie became the Queen's favourite
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