Newly returned from India, Lord Fallon feels duty-bound to restore his family’s disreputable name to social respectability. All that stands in his way is Scandalbroth, a tome of notorious indiscretions in which the Fallons feature prominently.

Miss Jane Ryder, secretary to the dowager author of the anticipated tell-all, offers to accompany Fallon to his estate and research a more proper history—his own—that might overshadow past scandal. But on Christmas Eve they discover a circle of candles in the snow, surrounding a willow basket that holds an infant child. Everything changes, including what they had thought most important in their own lives.