In 1923, Douglas Bellamy is dying in the Lake District, and a harsh entailment will leave his daughters destitute unless eldest daughter Geneva can charm a distant American cousin, arriving for Christmas, into marriage.
Geneva is already involved with Rory Sullivan, the Irish estate manager her father would never accept, and her younger sister Honor watches their forbidden affair as jealousy turns lethal.
With New Year's Eve approaching, loyalties inside the household break apart and a devastating secret comes to light, taking a young woman's life.
Present-day archaeologist Quinn Allenby investigates after a woman's body is found in a sealed well, still intact and clothed in silk.
A claddagh ring on the dead woman's finger offers no answers, yet an amethyst earring caught in her hair pulls Quinn into the doomed history of the Bellamys.
As Quinn's own family begins to split, she sees that the secret in the well could ruin those still living.
