Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones seeks her true identity amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from India.

Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.

This is the fact-based story of an aristocratic woman who defies Victorian society to reform hospital sanitation and to define the nursing profession as it is known today. After volunteering to travel to Scutari to care for the wounded soldiers, who are victims of the Crimean war, she finds herself very unwelcome and faces great opposition for her new way of thinking. However through her selfless acts of caring, she quickly becomes known as 'The Lady with the Lamp', the caring nurse whose shadow soldiers kiss.