Christmas should be the happiest time, but at Pennington's dramas are seething beneath the surface. For Cornelia Culford, a divorce hearing looms, where she could lose custody of her sons to her unfaithful husband. For Stephen Gower, being head of security at Pennington's is the perfect refuge from a tragic past at Scotland Yard. But soon Joseph Carter and Elizabeth Pennington beg him to help solve the murder of Joseph's first wife, now that the killer has struck again.