Emma meets the mysterious man Robert Harding while traveling on a stagecoach to visit her cousin Mary in Des Moines, Iowa. She encounters him again late one night in a garden and learns his secret. They form a bond and start to have deep feelings for each other. But their relationship is tested after a deadly incident happens the morning after a party they attended at Terrace Hill, a mansion owned by Iowa's first millionaire. The story is set in in Iowa in 1869 shortly after the civil war. A court room trial settles the couples fate.