Rumors that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are moving closer to an engagement were fueled Tuesday morning after reports surfaced that the couple were treated to a secret, after-hours tour of the Natural History Museum in London.
The Sun reported that the couple slipped in to London’s Natural History Museum as it was closing on Sunday night, with a source telling the paper: “Meg had always wanted to go, so Harry arranged a private visit.
“It’s quite romantic after dark as all the exhibits, including the dinosaurs, are all still lit up.
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“And of course, they had it to themselves.”
It has also emerged that Meghan has once again been staying in London with Prince Harry, at his home, Nottingham Cottage, in the grounds of Kensington Palace. The couple spent much of January and February living together in London.
This latest sojourn, complete with the Michael Jackson-style museum trip thrown in, comes after the couple attended the wedding of Tom Inskip, one of Harry’s closest friends, in Jamaica the weekend before last. While the partying went on till the early hours, Harry and Meghan slipped away from the celebrations to enjoy a relatively early night.
The increasingly public manner in which Harry and Meghan are conducting their relationship is ramping up speculation that the couple will announce an engagement soon.
Harry, 32, has been dating Meghan since last July. The U.S.-born actress and humanitarian is based in Toronto and stars in the hit TV legal drama Suits.
The show’s next series is due to start filming in April, but there is intense speculation that Meghan will quit the show soon in order to avoid hostile attention.
Meghan is now well-known to Harry’s family, and he has met her folks, too. She has been introduced to William, Kate, George, and Charlotte as well as Prince Charles, although it is believed she has not yet met the queen. Queen Elizabeth is said to have brushed aside concerns over Harry marrying an actress, who, by the very nature of her job, has previously welcomed publicity.
Meghan has demonstrated a refreshingly realistic attitude to dating Harry. Ever since blurry cellphone photographs were snapped by a passerby of Harry sauntering down Piccadilly in London with Meghan, wearing nothing more than woolly hats for disguises, they have made few efforts to conceal their relationship.
This latest museum trip, with multiple staff of necessity in attendance, is of a part with that non-paranoid attitude.
Harry himself publicly acknowledged the relationship in the course of publishing a letter seeking privacy and attacking the media for hounding him and Meghan.
It’s all very different from Harry’s previous relationship with Cressida Bonas, which was marked by what at first was nothing more than a charming desire on his part to protect her from the attentions of the press. The strategy worked for as long as the secret was kept, but once their relationship became public knowledge, the romance fell apart under the strain with shocking alacrity.
It was just days after Cressida made her first public appearance by Harry’s side that the two broke up.
It turns out that a secret relationship lived exclusively behind the closed doors of a tiny circle of friends’ houses wasn’t the best preparation for the reality of dating the world’s most eligible bachelor.
This time around, Harry—aided by the fearless Meghan Markle—seems to be taking a much more practical approach.
The next big public date for them is likely to be Pippa Middleton’s wedding in May. They would be unlikely to announce an engagement before Pippa’s wedding.
