Queen Camilla greeted Dame Jilly Cooper with a kiss on each cheek at the third annual Queen's Reading Room literary festival, held at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, yesterday.
Cooper's iconic lothario Rupert Campbell-Black was inspired by Camilla's former husband, Andrew Parker Bowles. The ex-husband and Cooper's daughter Laura Lopes were invited to a party earlier this year at Cooper's Gloucestershire home with the Rivals cast. "They enjoyed your party. They love a bit of your Rivals. Everybody's enjoyed your Rivals," the Queen told the author with a smile.
The Queen's Reading Room festival, a charity celebrating and promoting the transformative power of books, has taken up residence at Chatsworth House. Its online version has reached more than 12 million people in 183 countries.
In the on-screen Rivals adaptation, Rupert Campbell-Black is portrayed by Alex Hassell. The gathering at Chatsworth underscored the monarch's ongoing engagement with literature and authors as the festival continues to spotlight the role of reading in the public sphere.