In 1923, when New Orleans native and orphan Bobby Lee Claremont boards a train to Chicago, where he hopes to join the criminal element and make a new life for himself, far away from the heavy-handed salvation of the Sisters of Charitable Mercy, he acquaints himself with a group of intriguing and possibly dangerous passengers who cause Bobby Lee to reconsider his plans.

In Colorado during World War I, a young, romantically minded girl and an old, bitter woman suffragist debate a local legend and examine the role of women in a time of war and prejudice.

After the Army of the Republic destroys her father's inn in Brittany, nineteen-year-old Claudie Durand agrees to carry out a dangerous mission for the Legion--she must smuggle a diamond into England and use it to gain military support for the counterrevolutionaries.