India. The last days of the Raj circa the 1920s. Newly married Olivia Rivers arrives in India from England to join her husband Douglas, the Assistant Collector of Satipur, the capital of the princely state of Khatm. The state is a British protectorate but ruled by the Nawab of Khatm, a single man with a history of unsavoury relationships with women. The other important British people in Khatm are the Collector and his wife, Mr and Mrs Crawford, the resident doctor and his wife, Dr and Mrs Saunders, the Political Agent Major Minnies and Harry Hamilton-Paul, the Nawab's dilettante friend and guest. The palace is ruled with an iron hand by the Nawab's mother, the Begum.

When Mrs Rivers arrives, the British are trying to incorporate Khatm into British India. Everyone, including her husband, behaves with extreme propriety. They are rigidly formal and follow prescribed rules of conduct common among the colonial settlers. Indians are considered inferior. Given this stuffy set for company, the young Mrs Rivers is soon bored and prefers the company of the charming Nawab and his friend, the irresistible Hamilton-Paul. However the British suspect that Nawab is involved with a band of looters and want to use that as an excuse to deposition him. Mrs Rivers' association with him is frowned upon but, as a free spirit, she pays no attention to social rules.

Slowly, India, and ultimately the Nawab, seduce her. Mrs Rivers becomes pregnant. Not knowing whose child it is she gets the baby aborted with the Begum's help. She leaves her husband and flees in disgrace to the Nawab. The Nawab sets her up in a house in the hills, where she lives until the end of her life.

India. The 1980s. Anne, Olivia Rivers' great niece, arrives in Satipur to research the scandalous story of her great aunt. She is aided by letters her aunt wrote to a friend and the taped reminiscences of the aged Harry Hamilton-Paul, who she had interviewed in London. She leaves a failed relationship behind her. Satipur is now a small, dusty town in the vast republic of India. She revisits the sites of her aunt's adventures. She boards with Inder Lal, a middle-class officer and his family. In the course of Anne's research she comes across Chid, an American who has come to India to find himself. He tries to have sex with her but she refuses. Unable to stand the rigours of living in India, Chid goes back home. Slowly, India, and ultimately Inder Lal, seduce Anne. She becomes pregnant. After flirting with the idea of aborting the baby, she decides to keep it.