• explicit sexual activity: Isobel & Nathaniel have multiple consensual sexual encounters

• grief due to husband’s death: Isobel was widowed a year prior at the Battle of Waterloo and is still grieving Jamie at the beginning of the story

• grief due to parents’ deaths: shortly before the beginning of the story, both of Isobel’s parents die (her mother from consumption, her father to an unspecified heart ailment)

• PTSD from traumatic bereavement: Isobel’s PTSD includes nightmares (described in detail on page in Chapter 8) and panic attacks (several of which occur on page in Chapters 18 & 20 but which are not depicted in detail)

• discovery of past scars during intimate scenes: during their first nude sexual encounter in Chapter 13, Isobel explores scars Nathaniel acquired as a soldier in the Peninsular War

• legal sex work: multiple non-sexual scenes take place in a legal Parisian brothel, and Amélie, the owner of the brothel and a French spymistress, is a major supporting character

• gambling: in Chapter 11, Nate plays cards at a gambling hell while undercover

• sex club: while undercover, Isobel and Nathaniel attend a club catering to sexual liaisons and end up in a sexualized situation in Chapters 15-16

• discussions about sexual trafficking: Isobel fears that her adult sister has been sexually trafficked (and it is never specified on page what the truth is even once Lucy is located); Isobel, Nathaniel, and other supporting characters have brief, abstract discussions related to sexual trafficking, the lengthiest of which is in Chapter 5 

• on-page discussion about sexual coercion: in Chapter 22, an antagonist discusses sexually coercive behavior with Nathaniel while he is undercover

• possible infertility: Isobel has a brief conversation with Amélie in Chapter 18 about not having conceived during her first marriage.

• pregnancy: Isobel realizes in Chapter 29 that she is pregnant with a much-wanted child