Exquisite in her gown, made in the highest of Parisian fashion, Alexandrine thought her debutante ball was everything she had dreamed about, complete with a line of young suitors vying for her hand. Until her father showed up with the loathsome elderly Duc de St. Simon and announced she was to marry him. Her refusal had her declared hysterical by her father and thrown in La Salpêtrière Prison.
One of the most successful smugglers on the high seas, Bryce made a good living smuggling salt and coffee under the nose of the Duc d'Orléans. Until he was waylaid in a seaboard tavern and taken to La Salpêtrière prison.
The only way out was to marry each other and to undertake a deadly journey, by foot and by ship, to New Orleans where they were forced to fight oppressive heat, hurricanes, floods and their own doubts of each other.