Free Other Women by Fiona McDonald Page B

on the lookout for someone less dependent on her. Over the next few months she gradually weaned him off her. Their sexual relationship ended, much to the relief of the prince’s relatives. Freda maintained a steady friendship with Edward for years later, acting as his confidante and adviser in romantic issues.
    After his affair with Freda Ward, the prince met Thelma Furness, whose story will be told after this one. Freda stayed in contact with Edward all the time he was seeing Thelma and there was never a problem between the two women. Then, in the early 1930s, Freda suddenly found that she was no longer able to contact him. Her calls, she was told abruptly, would not be accepted. And that was the end of the relationship entirely.
    Freda lived to the ripe old age of 92; she died in 1983. When her family cleared out her house, 313 love letters were found from Edward, Prince of Wales, to Freda Dudley Ward. They were very intimate and revealed much about the prince. Freda must have answered at least some of them but no trace of these has been found. Speculation is that they either belong in the royal archives or were destroyed as embarrassing evidence – or that Mrs Wallis Simpson did away with them through jealousy.
L ADY T HELMA M ORGAN F URNESS
    Exit Freda Ward, enter Thelma Hays Morgan (1905–70). Thelma and her identical twin, Gloria, were born to an American father and a Chilean mother and were two of four children. Harry Hays Morgan was a diplomat and had postings all around the world. The twins were actually born in Switzerland when he was posted as American consul there. The children all spoke Spanish as their first language and English, or rather, American, as their close second. The three girls were brought up by nannies and governesses; Harry, the only boy, was sent to boarding school as soon as he was old enough. As part of a lady’s upbringing at the time it was still considered appropriate for the girls to learn how to dance, sing, draw and write elegant letters. Consuelo, the elder of the three sisters was also a bookworm, while the twins were not. All the children were multilingual.
    When the siblings grew up Harry went straight to Hollywood; Consuelo was forced into an arranged marriage with a man who turned out to be a trickster and which ended in a very quick annulment; the twins were convent educated and excelled in dress design and sewing. Consuelo quickly found a suitable husband for herself in a young American diplomat. In the meantime, the twins would stay at a finishing school, preparing for a sensational debut into society. Finishing school was not what the girls had in mind for themselves at all and they contacted their father for help. He gave them an allowance between them so that they could live independently in a flat in New York.
    At the age of 16 the twins decked themselves out in stunning dresses of their own design and began telling people they were older than they were in order to get invited to parties, hoping to find suitable husbands rather than be forced into some dreadful relationship by their mother. Unfortunately Thelma fell into the same kind of trap as her older sister, only unlike Consuelo, Thelma had only herself to blame. James Vail Converse was indeed who he claimed to be, part of the wealthy Bell telephone clan. What he was not was an independent, hard-working member of that family. He’d gambled and drunk his inheritance away and was on the lookout for a wife with lots of money.
    Thelma’s marriage to him was a disaster. Her sister Gloria also chose a man of her own. Another wealthy family with another spendthrift son: Reggie Vanderbilt. He had been married and divorced before and had two children whom he had provided for by putting money in a trust fund for them. Reggie’s mother, aware of her son’s position financially and his spending habits, gave the couple an allowance that would keep them very comfortably. Reggie was more than twice Gloria’s age, had been a