1825. Amelia Yorke is a destitute teacher with a petunia in a flowerpot outside her dingy Sydneytown cottage. Guy Richmond is a botanist seeking orchids in a Polynesian rainforest and heir to vast lands in New South Wales. They come from different worlds and should never have met, yet come together on the deck of a sailing ship overlooking a spectacular tropical lagoon. On the beach drums threaten. Below them a man desperately paddles for freedom. A man Amelia has never met yet agreed to marry. A man Guy loathes. The man is overtaken by pursuers. Soon aquamarine water is stained by blood. And...