Against his friends' advice, Londoner James Burden has bought Stanford House, a grand but dilapidated country estate. It comes complete with ancient castellated wing, stables, rolling moors, enchanting woodland, and a nearby village whose inhabitants continue to spread all manor of rumors about Stanford House and its former inhabitants. Burden sets about enjoying his new-found role as country squire, with plans to renovate Stanford and its vast gardens, and quiet evenings indulging his passion for reading. In purchasing the estate, however, he must also abide by a strange and alluring he must keep the former Mistress of Stanford on as housemaid. Magda Sullivan is quiet, beautiful, and helplessly alone. When her husband died in a tragic accident, he had left her nothing but debt and the estate, and so has no choice but to remain as the current owner’s servant. But there is something else besides this rather unconventional arrangement… something lurking, hidden in the evermore dense and strange fog which blankets the whole area and seeps in through the leaded windows. Soon, Burden is on a dangerous path to discover what might have really happened to Magda's late husband, Geoff Sullivan, as well as the other former tenants of Stanford House.