Brittany Cavanaugh, an oceanographer from the year 2001, discovers a mysterious Haitian amulet on the ocean floor off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. A member of a prestigious team who will attempt to unravel the mystery surrounding the sinking of the Titanic, Brittany is left so disturbed when she witnesses the ship's watery grave that she wishes she and her fiancé, Ian Buchanan, could have done something to stop the tragedy. In the next terrifying moments, she and Ian are swept through a mystifying tunnel that leads to the year 1912 and the teak decks of the doomed ocean liner. Their efforts to save the "unsinkable" ship prove fruitless and, they too, are left to try and survive the icy waters of the North Atlantic. A second plea opens the tunnel through time again, and Brittany's desperate hold on Ian is broken. When the blinding light clears, she finds herself alone in the post-Civil War era, where she is mistaken for the leader of an elusive White Slavery Ring.

She meets the infamous Jacques Devereaux, a Civil War blockade runner turned White Slaver, but her heart is torn when she must choose between the pirate and Clay Gentry, a southern gentleman who is in the midst of a desperate search for his missing twin sisters–and the President's daughter.