EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Will Prince Harry return the favour now his unofficial ‘best man’ is to wed? 

He appeared in the ‘band of brothers’ snapshot, taken at Windsor Castle when the Duke of Sussex and six of his closest accomplices stood shoulder to shoulder on the night of Prince Harry’s wedding.

It has since been suggested that Jack Mann was not just one of Harry’s ushers, but was, in fact, his “real” best man, rather than Prince William.

If that was so, perhaps Harry will now return the favor, because I can reveal that Mann, 40, is set to marry seductive osteopath Isabella Clark.

Neither Jack nor Isabella have publicly said a word about their impending nuptials.

His aversion to the limelight is perhaps understandable. Apart from his connection to Harry (they met as officer cadets at Sandhurst and both were commissioned in the Blues and Royals), Mann had a recent business trip to Libya cut short.

He is co-founder of Alma Risk, a private security company.

“We are not continuing the journey from Malta on the advice of Maltese immigration to rectify our paperwork,” Mann later explained to the Daily Mail.

“The issue was resolved in five days,” he added, explaining that Alma Risk was providing medical training to Libyan clients.

The exploits of his father, Old Etonian adventurer and former SAS officer Simon Mann, mean that the surname can sometimes attract unfortunate attention. Mann senior participated in the so-called ‘Wonga coup’ of 2004.

Destined to remove Teodoro Obiang, president of Equatorial Guinea, from power, it ended with Simón’s imprisonment, with Obiang threatening to eat his testicles.

Mann Snr survived five years of captivity and returned home intact.

I trust you will be available to toast the happy couple on their wedding day, which could be held at Isabella’s family seat in Suffolk.

The home of Isabella, daughter of property magnate Stephen Clark, is a magnificent 17th-century crenellated tower, with wide expanses of lawns sloping down to a river.

Useful for landing a helicopter, as Harry and Meghan can note.

They have already raised £15 million to buy a sumptuous country house and have found time, as I said, to issue eviction notices to various tenants occupying lesser properties on their newly acquired Berkshire estate.

But Pippa Middleton and her financial husband, James Matthews, don’t have things their way.

I can reveal that the couple’s plans to insert a mammoth 82ft x 19ft swimming pool into what has hitherto been a magnificent orchard, and to create a new covered tennis court with AstroTurf, have been questioned by specialists. employed by the municipality.

“I have a number of concerns,” the conservation officer reports, citing the cessation of “horticultural use” in favor of “leisure/recreational use,” and the possible loss of “historic fabric” in one of the ancient walls that Sister Princess of Wales, 39, and James, 47, intend to drill.

The conservation officer requests more detailed plans for the tennis court and a proposed gazebo.

As significant as those concerns are, they are dwarfed by those of the council’s chief archaeologist, who highlights apparent deficiencies in an estate report commissioned by Pippa and James.

‘I am not aware that [its] the authors consulted the Historical Environmental Registry’, says the archaeologist, noting that this is required by the National Planning Policy Framework.

Thats not all. The Matthews’ mansion, they add, is close to “many Middle Stone Age sites,” several just over a quarter of a mile away.

If a new pool is excavated, it could “have an impact on the surviving archaeological deposits.”

The council recommends ‘the digging of trenches or test pits’ where work is proposed.

Would it be simpler, perhaps, to upgrade the existing pool and retain the kitchen garden, where, in time, there may be a blue plaque erected to commemorate a previous owner whose ownership, the official says, ‘adds to the Historical significance of the house and grounds’?

You can see why Prince Andrew is considering taking legal action to try to “restore” his reputation after the scandal surrounding his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein: he’s still a “non-person” in polite society.

Former GQ editor Dylan Jones shared a photograph on social media this week of his former boss at Conde Nast magazines, Nicholas Coleridge, leaving his Mayfair offices at Vogue House.

However, Jones made sure to very carefully crop Coleridge’s partner that day out of the picture: the Duke of York.

Nigella Lawson has caused a diplomatic incident Down Under.

The domestic goddess, 63, posted a recipe online to celebrate Australia Day.

“It’s a special one,” he declared. Lemon pavlova.

While the pudding looked delicious, it left half the Antipodeans in an uproar as lemon pavlova is claimed to be a kiwi dish.

“Ma’am, just so we’re clear, pavlova is a New Zealand dessert,” stated one of the more polite responses.

Another thought she was being deliberately provocative. ‘Way to wipe out the Kiwis!’ was a cheerful response.