Wives Like Us

Set in the wealthy rural parishes known collectively as "the Bottoms," the story follows the intertwined lives of several privileged families and their devoted butler during one eventful summer. Ian Palmer, the 36-year-old Executive Butler to socialite Tata Hawkins, serves as the linchpin who holds together the social dramas, romantic entanglements, and domestic crises that unfold across the neighboring estates.

The novel opens on a Monday morning in May, when Ian learns that Selby Fairfax, the mysterious new American owner of Great Bottom Park, has agreed to come to dinner. This is thrilling because Tata's social standing has recently collapsed. A month earlier, Tata discovered a suspicious jewellery receipt in the office of her husband Bryan, a self-made electrical mogul. Bryan claimed the purchase was a retirement gift for his accountant, but Tata suspected an affair and stormed out of their lavish 14-bedroom Monkton Bottom Manor, relocating herself, their eight-year-old daughter Minty, and Ian to the Old Coach House at the estate's far end, with Ian forced into cramped quarters in the Annexe. Both spouses are too proud to apologize first, leaving the family at an impasse.

At the annual village fete, Tata's closest friends join her: Sophie Thompson, a cash-strapped but socially adept wife of Conservative Member of Parliament Hugh Thompson, and Fernanda Ovington-Williams, a half-Venezuelan, half-Swedish heiress. The three women discuss the unseen Selby, an acclaimed garden designer and divorcée whose ex-husband Doug Fairfax, founder of the sneaker company SneakersDirect, fell in love with someone else and left. Adding to Tata's anxiety, Minty returns with bikinis from "Daddy's new friend," a young entrepreneur named Tallulah de Sanchez. Ian secretly learns from Charlene Potts, the Hawkinses' personal assistant, that Bryan has taken Tallulah to Venice but hides this from Tata.

That afternoon, Tata overhears an argument between Selby and her 14-year-old daughter Violet by the lake. The two women strike up a conversation, and Selby confides that she is an orphan who inherited Great Bottom Park from Lady Maud Bottom, a distant cousin of her grandfather. Tata invites Selby to dinner, and Selby accepts eagerly.

Ian seizes on the dinner as an opportunity to restore Tata's social status and to find Selby a new husband. His top candidate is Antoni Grigorovich, a Polish billionaire fashion tycoon who recently purchased Little Bottom Priory. Ian also recruits Charlene as a mole to monitor Bryan and Tallulah at the Manor and adds various single men to the guest list, including Vere Osborne, a gentleman farmer and barrister who lives next door to Selby.

Meanwhile, Selby's daughters Tess and Violet inadvertently cause a water crisis by filling an old slurry pit with a garden hose, draining the shared spring that feeds Vere's farm and killing his prize cow Bluebell. When Selby goes to apologize, she mistakes a man delivering a calf for a farmhand, not realizing she is speaking to Vere himself.

The Kitchen Supper, as Tata calls it, unfolds as an extravagant all-white affair with mountains of flowers and borrowed bantam hens. Selby and Josh Hall, Great Bottom Park's young competition groom, arrive late in riding breeches. At dinner, Antoni is charmed by Selby, but Vere is cold, revealing he is the man she mistook for a farmhand. The evening ends in chaos when Tallulah's Pomeranian, Pikachu, wanders in, urinates on a chair, and kills one of the hens.

After the party, Selby impulsively spends the night with Josh. The next morning, she wakes to discover that Doug has arrived unannounced from New York with the family dachshunds. Selby tells Doug that "Josh" is the name of a new pet, a fiction her housekeeper Doreen Hunnigan corroborates. Separately, Ian encounters Doug at the churchyard while visiting the grave of Boris, whose death he has been mourning throughout the story. This scene reveals that Boris was Ian's beloved dog, not a human partner. Ian and Doug bond, and when Doug mentions creative struggles, Ian quips "LoafersDirect?", sparking a design idea that excites the entrepreneur.

As weeks pass, Tata interprets Antoni's growing attentiveness as proof he is falling for Selby, though his compliments increasingly target Tata herself. Bryan reveals the truth about the jewellery receipt: It was for a custom Bulgari necklace he secretly commissioned as Tata's 40th birthday surprise. His lie to protect the surprise spiraled into their separation. Ian devises a plan for Bryan to present the jewels at Tata's birthday, but the plan shifts when Antoni offers to host the celebration at Little Bottom Priory instead.

Sophie's life deteriorates in parallel. Her husband Hugh has made suspicious purchases, including a Porsche, funded by what he claims is an inheritance from a Great-Aunt Edith. A fire destroys half the kitchen at the Rectory, Sophie and Hugh's home, and police suspect 15-year-old Edgar Duffield, son of one of Tata's aristocratic social rivals, of arson. Sophie and her son Eddie take refuge with Selby at Great Bottom Park. Then the Financial Times publishes allegations that Hugh accepted bribes from a Kazakh oil tycoon, and the final blow comes when Great-Aunt Edith phones Sophie, very much alive. Sophie realizes the luxuries were funded by bribes, and Vere offers to handle her legal case for free.

During a horseback ride Sophie organizes, the group attempts to jump a hedge into Vere's farm. Doug's horse stumbles on landing, throwing Doug to the ground and crashing down on top of him. Doug falls into a coma with brain swelling, and the community rallies around Selby and the girls through visits and childcare. Josh tells Selby he has landed an Hermès modeling campaign and is moving to Paris, ending their fling before she can end it herself.

Doug wakes from his coma, and the birthday party proceeds at Little Bottom Priory. Onstage, Antoni delivers a romantic speech and places a diamond ring on Tata's finger. Tata tries to redirect him toward Selby, but both deny any romance. Tata's matchmaking was based on a misunderstanding: The man Selby spent the night with was Josh, not Antoni. The situation escalates when Antoni's estranged wife Galina storms in, revealing he is still legally married and has a pattern of proposing without divorcing.

Bryan then arrives, drops to one knee, presents the Bulgari necklace, explains the truth about the receipt, and gives Tata tickets to Lamu for New Year's. Tata forgives him, and the couple reconciles. Tallulah crashes the party and latches onto Antoni when he mentions knowing Jeff Bezos. Doug appears in a wheelchair and presents Ian with sequin-embroidered loafers from the LoafersDirect line, offering him a fashion career in America. Ian declines, saying the Dovecot, his cottage on the estate, is his castle and that being the Hawkinses' butler is all he wants.

On the dance floor, Ian spins Selby into Vere's arms. Vere tells Selby that since meeting her, he no longer feels as heartbroken about Anjelica, his late fiancée, and they share the promise of a new beginning. A postscript confirms that Selby and Vere begin a love story, Tata resumes her reign at the Manor, Hugh goes to prison for bribery, Sophie rebuilds her life, and Ian wins an award for Outstanding Executive Butler of the Year, planning to spend his winnings on a new dachshund puppy for the Dovecot, where he intends to live happily ever after.