Not all is what it appears at number 10 Beaumont Square. The seemingly perfect marriage of Tobias and Isobelle Wellington is fractured when a dark secret surfaces. But to the public eye, nothing changes.

However twenty years later Tobias' past catches up with him. Flora Brown and her daughter Beanie are employed below stairs as cook and scullery maid. Beanie is the illegitimate daughter Flora conceived with Tobias all those years ago. Tobias fears that she will talk if he sacks her, so he has no choice but to let them stay. Him above the stairs and them below.

The Wellingon's offspring, Sarah and Herbert, have no idea that the scullery maid is their half sister. Sarah and Beanie become great friends and become models for a naughty photographer. Herbert however is a class snob and dislikes Beanie intensely. In the meantime Isobella finds that she likes and trusts her cook, they are both suffragettes. One drunken night the truth about Beanie comes out. After tears and apologies, the two women vow never to tell the children that they share the same father and become even closer.

However, secrets are hard to keep and inevitably the wrong person gets hold of the information.