Edith Lavery, the attractive only child of a moderately successful accountant and his social-climbing wife, earns a living answering the telephone in a fashionable Chelsea estate agent. While visiting his parents' house as a member of the public, she meets Charles Broughton, Earl Broughton and heir to the Marquess of Uckfield, who runs the family estates in East Sussex and Norfolk. To the gossip-columns he is one of the most eligible young aristocrats around.

When he proposes Edith accepts. But is she really in love with Charles? Or with his title, his position and all that she thinks goes with it?

Partaking in events and never shy of commenting is Charles Broughton's mother, the shrewd Lady Uckfield, known to her friends as 'Googie'. Edith, she decides, is a young woman on the make. And when a television company descends on Broughton Hall to make a period drama, 'Googie's' worst fears are fully justified. lis story contains occasional strong or sexually explicit language.

Julian Fellowes was educated at Cambridge and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. He trained in repertory theatre at Northampton and Harrogate before making his West End debut in A Touch of Spring . As an actor he is probably best-known (or his portrayal of Lord Kilwillie in BBC Television's series Monarch of the Glen. In the cinema he was seen in Shadowlands, Damaqe and Tomorrow Never Dies.