Rick Morgan, an American engineer who runs a mine in East Africa, is approached one day by his friend Jim Scott, who needs someplace to store canisters of toxic waste. Unfortunately, a spill occurs a short time later, resulting in deaths and Morgan having to leave the country. A year later, he is approached by a government agent looking for a missing supply of potentially hazardous poison, which in truth hides something even more valuable.

This is the story of the Charles Heidsieck who opened the market for Champagne sales in America just prior to the American Civil War. He is a reluctant French spy and is captured and spends time in a Union prison. There are two parallel love stories (he is French) and some battles with his uncle for control of the family vineyard (because his father married his mother who the uncle also loved).