As a measure of her weakness of character, she went along with his amorous intentions yet wrote to Ernest all the while. It was not so much a play for the prince as his obsessive possessiveness that created a situation from which she found it impossible to extricate herself. What does become clear is that with the failure of her marriage to Ernest, for no other substantial reason than they were spending less time together, the flirtatious Simpson emotionally overstretched herself. This was not the view of those close to them. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were adamant there was no sex between them before their marriage. What perplexed many, and Sebba states it again here, is ''how could a middle-aged, not especially beautiful, rather masculine-looking woman have exerted such a powerful effect on a king that he gave up his throne in order to possess her?'' How indeed? The prince once wrote to her at 3am: ''I am just going mad at the mere thought of you alone there with Ernest.'' Her wooing of the prince, a man whose conversation she found ''exhausting'', was brilliantly successful. Sebba shows that Wallis Simpson was, as she approached 40, desperately insecure, with ''a deep emotional, not necessarily sexual, need to show that she was still alluring''. The prince appears as a man indiscriminate with his affections, a serial mistress-keeper and womaniser. Twice married and divorced before marrying the Prince of Wales, this ''naturally flirtatious'' shallow and vacuous woman is none the less revealed as compellingly attractive.
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