Catherine "Cay" Harcourt from Virginia visits her godfather T.C. in Charleston. Her family hobnobs with the likes of Thomas Jefferson as T.C. convinces her to help rescue a condemned prisoner on her way to a ball. Scottish immigrant Alex McDowell is a self-made man who thought he had many friends in Charleston until his bride was found dead the morning after the ceremony. All Alex knows is that he was drugged. When Cay arrives with a horse for Alex, the two escape together when the rescue goes awry. Keeping to his original plan of joining an expedition in the wilds of Florida, they travel only as fast as the news of the escape, forcing Cay to don boy's clothes and pretend to be Alex's brother. As love blooms, their future looks bleak unless they can find out what really happened to Alex's wife.