Inside the Serabelle summer cottage, sitting high atop a rocky bluff, the lives of the servants become forever intertwined with those of the wealthy landowners. Mabel Rae joins the staff of Serabelle on Mt. Desert Isle, Maine, in 1913 just as the suffragist movement is at its height and prohibition ideas are gaining strength. Estate owner, Alistair Hunt, a drunken, boisterous philanderer in his late fifties, becomes enamored with the seventeen-year-old maid, who willingly falls into an affair with him. When Mabel discovers she is pregnant, she fantasizes that Alistair will divorce his wife and drive away with her. In the midst of family betrayal, as the country is on the brink of war, Mabel must discover where her loyalties lie and what freedoms she will eventually possess.