BeatrixFan said:
This is the strange thing, despite their divorce, Andrew and Sarah are extremely close. In Brian Hoey's "At Home with the Queen", he says that at the Duke of York's apartments in Buckingham Palace, the sign on the door still says, "TRH The Duke and Duchess of York" and when some workmen removed it to replace it "HRH The Duke of York", Andrew went mad and insisted on the old sign being immediately returned. He also has quite a few portraits of Sarah around so I think that he must love still feel something for Sarah.
Hm, I'm not so sure about that when I think about it. If I was the writer of a psychological mystery, I'd have a field day out of Andrew's family constellation. Just think for a moment about him in the context of his birth: he is the spare, Charles is the heir. He chose the military as his profession and went to war. The war was won and Andrew finally had a label Charlesw didn't have: war hero.
He had a reputation as a womanizer while Charles got kids. But then Andrew married, too, and got kids himself. Girls instead of Charles' boys. Then the marriages broke down. It turned out that Andrew was the cuckolded husband while Charles even married his mistress after getting rid of his wife.
Andrew has not much beyond his military lifestyle. IMHO he could be fixated on being a "victor" - both in his professional and his private life. Maybe he is simply not able to let loose with Sarah as this would mean defeat. Even the changing of the name plates on his apartment would sound "DEFEAT" each time he saw that door - and he works in London, so spends quite some time there.
And Sarah maybe knows perfectly how to play him: "You know, Andrew, if I can't stay with you when I'm in London the girls will want to be with me..." "You know, Andrew, the girls...."... "You know, Andrew, the media will have a field day if I..." You never know how vicious and/or sly a woman can be who is at fault but wants to talk herself out of it. If she pushed the right buttons...
Suddenly a lot of small incidents start to make sense: the one lately in New York when Andrew appears with Sarah but while he takes his place as the guest of honour, she is reduced to sitting at his servant's table. On her own turf - the US! Or Beatrice's birthday: maybe he got his parents to allow the party at Windsor but they didn't attend as a sign that they don't condone Sarah's way to get the upper hand with Andrew.
Mind, this is just a scenario that could fit into a crime story. I just wanted to point out that there could be a completely different explanation for the rather "strange" relationship of Andrew and Sarah. And the combination of "second son". "war hero" and "cuckolded husband" is such a rewarding one if you use your imagination...