Promises are all Mitchell Flannery and Whitney Clayborn had. They were once star-crossed lovers together by a passion of which South Carolinians would never approve...For Mitchell was a dirt poor farm boy and Whitney--a society belle. They came together briefly on the eve of the Civil War; and were just as quickly and cruelly wrenched apart...

Whitney married a suitable gentleman with money and enormous political ambitions. Their young son was the most precious thing in her barren life. But seven years after the only man she ever loved left for war, he returned--to challenge once again all Whitney held dear and to test the true limits of her heart and soul...