Express. Is it a girl...has Kate let slip on royal baby secret?

The Duchess of Cambridge has set tongues wagging that she will give birth to a girl... after thanking a well-wisher who gave her a teddy and almost mouthing the word “daughter”.

Fresh from her break in the Swiss Alps, tanned Kate had flown by helicopter into a fog-bound Grimsby where her first engagement was to visit the National Fishing Heritage Centre.

But it was during a 10-minute walkabout in front of a 2,000-strong crowd that Kate, 31, appeared to reveal her baby secret, when handed a teddy bear by Diane Burton, 41.

Next to her was Sandra Cook, 67, a grandmother-of-two, who said: “She was just so natural, it was like talking to a friend. She moved on to the lady next to me and that is when she almost let slip the secret.

The Duchess, who is about five months pregnant, hid her baby bump under a russet calf-length Hobbs coat during her visit to Humberside. She went on to open a school, the Havelock Academy, where she hinted she is craving cupcakes after remarking on the “delicious” cooking aromas in the classroom.

“She talked about cupcakes,” said food technician Sharon Swales. “She said ‘I bet you are lucky enough to cook cupcakes’. She said ‘delicious’ about 10 times. She obviously loves cupcakes if she is talking about them. If we had known, then we would have cooked them.”

Pupil Tage Lawn, 13, said: “I said ‘Hello, your majesty’. She said ‘Are you all right?’ She was pretty. You think of Royals speaking really posh but she spoke a bit normal.”