Barbara Taylor Bradford: 'He says he's married to another Mrs Thatcher... I tell him she's wonderful'

The china blue eyes sparkle despite a touch of cold, and a flick of the magic make-up wand has added the expected Taylor Bradford glamour. That and a few carefully chosen pieces from the BTB jewellery collection – turquoise earrings, large turquoise and diamond brooch and a gob-stopper ring.

Bob Bradford loves to spoil Barbara, and another of his indulgences is the Herms clutch bag perched on the table between us in the Promenade lounge of the Dorchester Hotel. All the staff know "Mrs Bradford"; this is, after all, her home when she is in London.

Barbara doesn't so much chat as hold forth – about the Med cruise she and Bob have just enjoyed ("I had flat shoes with me, but even they became sooo uncomfortable in the heat... So I bought some more at Louis Vuitton in Istanbul"), and how much she misses her adored bichon fris doggy Chammi, who's being pampered by the housekeeper and ruling the roost back in a certain sumptuous Manhattan apartment.

"She becomes very despondent when she sees us packing, so we do it, then put the suitcases away again, but quickly get them out later and leave while she's not looking," says Barbara. Having their terminally-ill second dog put down earlier in the year was desperately upsetting.

Barbara and Bob are in Europe mixing business and pleasure. Bob's topped up his walnut tan, while Barb has evidently protected her peachiness in the shade. Today is business, and BTB is promoting her 26th novel, Playing The Game – a tale of love, high-rolling trickery and intrigue set in the world of fine art. Her willowy, blue-eyed and stunning protagonist Annette Remmington is an art dealer who has suddenly become a star through the discovery and mega-million sale of a Renoir not seen on the market for many decades.

Annette is not unhappily married to Marius, a Svengali character

decades her senior, but their union isn't red-hot either. An old secret binds them together, and the plot turns on a charming journalist's discovery of facts which could blow Annette's carefully orchestrated life out of the water. And of course the suave and witty Jack lights a few of Annette's fires.

Famously brought up with a stern work ethic by her late mum, Freda, and dad, Winston, in Armley, Leeds, Barbara moved into fiction via journalism at the Yorkshire Evening Post and women's magazines. These days she says she spends most of the year in old trousers and a t-shirt, with no make-up on. Rising at 5am, she puts in a couple of hours at her electric typewriter, then fixes coffee and eggs for herself and Bob. She works on, takes a break to read, and eventually emerges for dinner. Barb writes, Bob promotes, markets and otherwise helps to sell her books, as well as having made television mini-series of many of the novels. They're a team, and having Bob to do all the other stuff leaves BTB to concentrate on words.

Her bestsellers involve determined women, all of them with some kind of characteristic in common with Emma Harte, whose story – as told in A Woman of Substance – started the BTB phenomenon rolling back in 1979.

Barbara was then 46 and had gone to live in New York after meeting and falling for TV producer Bob Bradford following a blind date. She'd tried and discarded many half-written manuscripts before hitting on the idea of the Yorkshire saga of a maid turned multimillionaire businesswoman.

BTB has now sold more than 80 million books across the globe, and her wealth has been estimated at as much as 165m. She's not much of a shopper (you don't need to if you've got Bob), except for specific needs like underwear or a special frock. She loves antiques and art, though.

But money clearly isn't what makes Barbara fire up the keyboard. She seems to love both her readers and the characters she writes. "Yes, they're as real to me as you are, sitting there. I know their whole story from birth, too, not just what you see in the book."

They love her in Nicaragua; they adore her in Finland. One American reader turned up to a signing with all of Barbara's books, one of them sporting a bullet hole. The husband, exasperated at his wife's devotion to the novelist, took it out on the hardback.

Barbara's heroines have inhabited all sorts of worlds, from department stores to the theatre. Why fine art, and was she at all worried that her lack of insider knowledge might attract derision?

"The art world is interesting and intriguing because it's full of talented, glamorous people, but it's vicious, snobbish, competitive, gossipy and bitchy. There are many forgeries so good that even highly knowledgeable buyers can't spot them. I decided to research the bad side of the art world."

And Barbara says she is not tinkering at the edges of a business of which she knows absolutely nothing. "I have always been interested in art, ever since my mother took me to stately homes around Yorkshire.

"I love Impressionist painting, and have books on the lives and works of almost all of the artists. I go to the Louvre whenever we're in Paris, and Bob and I own some lovely paintings – but not a Renoir, sadly. To be honest, I don't care what people in the art world think. It (criticism) rolls off my back these days. A lot of people do love my books. I write pretty good commercial popular fiction that's better than most people's."

A few years ago, Barbara's biographer Piers Dudgeon researched her mother and grandmother's lives and came up with documentation that pointed towards Freda Taylor having been the illegitimate daughter of Frederick Robinson, the Marquess of Ripon.

After the shock and upset of hearing this for the first time, BTB looked at the evidence and didn't excise the chapter from the book because there is some fairly compelling evidence to support it, although no-one is alive to tell the truth.

"I'm still Barbara Taylor Bradford from Armley, daughter of Freda and Winston, and best-selling novelist," says Barbara. "But one old school friend did say: 'There was always something different about you, Barbara. You weren't quite one of us...'"

Barbara and Bob are coming up to their 47th anniversary in December. Bob, or elements of Bob, pop up in the novels – as in the ridiculous neatness of Jack in Playing the Game. "I have to go and find magazines in the trash, because Bob tidies them away so quickly, " she says fondly.

They're obviously a devoted couple, although she's happy to admit to jealousies in their younger days. "Bob is very charming and good company, and women flock to him. He got 22 birthday cards and messages from my girlfriends this year!

"I was brought up by two Geminis, always either fighting or in each other's arms, and I really understood them. Bob is also Gemini so I knew about the changing moods. You have to have the initial sexual attraction, love and being in love, but beyond that he is very bright and has a great sense of humour. We're quite alike.

"We used to have big quarrels, but I remembered my mother saying: 'Never say you're going to leave if you have an upset at work or tell your husband you want a divorce' and I never have. I used to slam out of the room, but that doesn't happen now. If we have a disagreement, I say 'okay' and back off for a while. I'll come back later and offer a cup of tea.

"I think it's important not to bear a grudge and never to say anything really terrible during a row, as those things are hard to forget. I know Bob thinks I'm bossy and he says he's married to another Margaret Thatcher. I tell him she is a wonderful woman and Yorkshire is full of women like her. Bob is very good at turning the other cheek. If you get through the anger and jealousy of your 30s and 40s then things do become calmer. You get wiser as you get older, and we are very happy to be together."

Barbara also reckons being busy keeps them happy and young.

"People who retire fade away. I get asked all the time why I still do it, and first of all it's no-one's business and secondly, I love working and could never just shop and go for lunch. I would be bored if I didn't sit down every day and dream up stories."

n Playing the Game is published by HarperCollins on September 30, 17.99. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop call 0800 0153232 or go online www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk