People

By Guy D. Garcia

He popped the big question four weeks ago by getting down on both royal knees during a weekend trip to Floors Castle in Scotland, where Prince Charles once wooed Diana. Like her good friend the Princess of Wales, Sarah Ferguson said yes, but her official betrothal to Prince Andrew had to wait until his mother returned from a trip to Australia and New Zealand. By the time Buckingham Palace released the expected announcement on the Queen's stationery last week, a crowd had gathered outside the gates. Meanwhile, Fleet Street was in a tizzy of breathless speculation that began in January after "Fergie" was invited by the Queen to a week-long New Year's house party at Sandringham.

News of the impending nuptials evoked almost audible sighs--of disappointment from would-be Cinderellas and of relief from the royal family, which was obviously delighted that "Randy Andy" had finally settled down with a proper "Sloane Ranger." Well, perhaps not entirely proper. She had been previously involved in a three-year affair with a racing-car driver 22 years her senior. But then Andrew has a past as well. The effervescent, redheaded Ferguson has long been a favorite of Queen Elizabeth's. She is , distantly related to the Queen through her father, Major Ronald Ferguson, who is Charles' polo manager, a close friend of Prince Philip's and a cousin of Princess Alice, widow of the Queen's uncle. Andrew and his intended, both now 26, knew each other as children. "They met on the polo fields. But then, doesn't everybody?" said Ferguson's mum, Susan Barrantes, who left home when Sarah was 14 and married an Argentine polo player. (There is some chat about whether he will get a wedding invitation, since Andrew saw action against his countrymen during the bitter war over the Falklands.)

Diana seems to have had the match in mind for some time, but romantic sparks did not fly between the pair until chocolate profiteroles did, one afternoon last June at Ascot. He tried to make her eat some; she wasn't having any and playfully threw them at him. Bull's-eye. "There are always humble beginnings," said the zinged Andrew at a press conference last week. "It's got to start somewhere." Currently "over the moon" and hoping for a late-summer wedding in Westminster Abbey, the couple kissed happily for the cameras. Then the bride-to-be gave reporters a look at her engagement ring, a $37,000 oval ruby surrounded by ten drop diamonds that Andrew helped design. Asked what they saw in each other, the Prince fumbled for an answer. "Wit? Charm? And good looks?" prompted his future wife. "Yes, probably," he replied, "and the red hair." The girl who would be Princess laughed and nudged Andrew's arm somewhat sheepishly. Ferguson's official title will be Her Royal Highness the Princess Andrew. "A great honor," she allowed. "Much looking forward to carrying it out or whatever I'm supposed to do." But she is hoping that her official duties will not prevent her from also carrying on with her career working in a London graphic-arts office. She would be the first royal wife to be a wage earner.