Their arrangement was unspoken, their longing undeniable American heiress Celia Fletcher crossed the Atlantic for a viscount, only to be used for her fortune and abandoned in a gilded London cage-her money stolen, her marriage a lie. The one man who sees the truth behind her polite smiles is Thomas Henderson, the butler. Together, they forge an unspoken arrangement to fight back and reclaim their lives. In the process, they breathe life into the empty rooms and one another. As Celia navigates the treacherous path toward divorce and Henderson sheds the emotional damage of war, their connection ignites into a passion that terrifies and liberates them both. As they turn the cold, empty house into a warm, loving home, their carefully built walls of propriety crumble, revealing a fierce passion that threatens to consume them. Their affair becomes the worst-kept secret in London, a public rebellion that culminates in a glittering, dangerous Christmas season. But with her husband's fraud about to be exposed and a deadly blizzard closing in, their new-found happiness has a price and a time limit. The countdown to a new year has begun. Will they beat the clock?