KATE MIDDLETON’S break-up with Prince William is more than just the end of a youthful romance.

Yesterday morning, as she drove away from her Berkshire home with the family who had helped her towards an unlikely place at the heart of the royal household, her prospects as the future Queen of England were behind her.

From behind her sunglasses, the 25-year-old may have been reflecting on the change to her life as she leaves the royal orbit. She faces a return to the shop floor and her work as an assistant buyer at Jigsaw, the high street fashion chain.

Despite the lack of an engagement between William and Kate, she quietly acquired some almost-royal trappings.

She was given her own close police protection and watched rugby internationals from the royal box. MPs debated how best to protect her from increasingly intrusive paparazzi and she acquired an Audi A3 on a cut-price lease made available to royalty.

She was viewed as such a shoo-in to become William’s wife the bookies stopped taking bets.

Now, despite the break-up, Middleton’s life will never be the same. “It is as though she has been in a global production of a hit play and the curtain has come down,” said Geordie Greig, the editor of Tatler magazine and a close observer of William’s circle. “Inevitably there will be a sense that the lights have dimmed.”

Speculation about her future began in earnest yesterday. Her captivating style and bashful appearance have inevitably been compared by some to Princess Diana. Dylan Jones, editor of GQ, once called her “the most intriguing woman in Britain”.

Now she faces some urgent choices. “His world is going to expand ever more as the future king,” said Greig. “Hers will become ever more normal as she returns full-time to civilian life.”

One highly unlikely option is to sell her story for an unprecedented sum. “She has the biggest kiss-and-tell in history,” said Max Clifford, the Fleet Street story broker, yesterday.

“If she sold it she could make £5m. But she wouldn’t dream of doing it. She is loyal, trustworthy, discreet and proud. Selling her story is not in her vocabulary.”

She is likely to remain loyal to William. They met as students and shared a house at university in St Andrews, first as friends.

For future girlfriends of William, that friendship may cast a shadow. Those close to the prince have suggested their relationship may in future even echo his father’s slow-burning romance with Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.

“There remains the possibility this is a temporary break,” said a source in William’s circle.

Kate’s mother Carole, a former air hostess, was at her daughter’s side this weekend at the family home in Bucklebury, Berkshire.

Carole is said to have encouraged her daughter early to court William. But the possibility of her middle-class family marrying into royalty as Sophie Rhys-Jones did when she married Prince Edward, is all but over.

Carole and her husband Michael will be cushioned by the small fortune they have made from Party Pieces, a mail-order company that provides products for children’s parties, and their close-knit family.

The strength of those bonds was tested last December when Middleton turned down an invitation from the Queen to spend Christmas at Sandringham.

She instead spent a week with her family in a rented farmhouse in Perthshire. It was the first Christmas after her grandmother had died and Carole wanted to gather her family around her.

With characteristic tact, Kate drove to Norfolk to join the royals on Boxing Day. She spent a short break with William in an isolated cottage on the estate.

Her shrewdness and connections, backed up by a sense of style, have been identified as crucial in helping her avoid the “Koo Stark factor”. Stark appeared in some films but is remembered by the public for little but her brief relationship in the 1980s with Prince Andrew. “[Middleton] would be priceless as an ambassador for an upmarket fashion house,” Clifford suggested.

Middleton’s father was unintentionally prophetic when in 2003 his daughter was photographed with William in St Andrews and he insisted they were only “the best of pals”.

“We are very amused at the thought of being inlaws with Prince William,” he told reporters. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen.” This weekend the family remained silent.

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