Lydia Fulgate is a widowed American who arrives in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century to enmesh herself in the best social circles in the hopes of finding romance and her destiny. Charlotte Duret is a charming French woman who becomes disinherited and, in effect, loses her chance in the Parisian marriage game.

What these women have in common, besides a shared interest in a certain wealthy count, is the growing realization that their lives and freedoms are governed by men and the rigid rules of their social set. Lydia and Charlotte boldly resolve to pool their remaining money and move to the American frontier, where their survival will not depend on the largesse of men, but rather on their own wits and hard work.

Determined to create an independent women's community on the Kansas prairie, the two women extract promises from their friends to visit and perhaps even join them. While they meet with some success in establishing their own ranch, they are unprepared for the hazards that accompany farming life. Lydia and Charlotte's hope for total autonomy is continually met with skepticism and mistrust.

The allure of the West had promised to be an ideal place for societal renegades; nonetheless, the structured rules of society permeate even the frontier. These doubts threaten not only their dream but also their friendship, pushing them both to make costly decisions about the choices they have made.