Jacob Brodie came to Texas in 1836. With no family left in Kentucky, he decided to stay and make his home in the new Republic after Texan independence had been won. It's 1848 and after a decade and more of battling Comanche Indians and bandits along the borders, Jacob now commands his own company of Texas Rangers. But unattached and with no family, life in Texas has been a lonely existence.

The arrival in Galveston of a clipper ship from England will ultimately change Jacob's world. For on that ship is a man, an attorney, bearing important news. From this man, Jonah Kitchen, Jacob Brodie learns he is the sole male heir to a vast estate in Berkshire, England, from where his mother's family originated. Likewise, with this estate comes an earldom. A new life begins for Jacob in England, complete with distrustful relatives whom he's never met and servants who live drastically separate lives.

There are also greedy, neighboring land owners who nurture a burning resentment towards this family. While becoming immersed in the upper class of Victorian English society, Jacob feels more and more like a fish out of water as he continues to cling to his honest and simple, yet rough American frontier upbringing. This is a story about a man from the New World trying hard to find his way in the old one. Ultimately, Jacob finds in England family, romance, love, and tragedy.