Exactly how steamy is this story?
PG-13
Though the book features a major babe, a serious flirtation, and a love triangle in the first half, Anderson keeps it all pretty harmless. There are all sorts of innuendoes about what could happen, especially between Cassiopeia and Lord Cheldthorpe, but nothing actually comes of it—or, for that matter, anything else in the book.
Cassiopeia is passed around kind of like a geisha girl or a high-class escort, but if she has any sex, the book never lets us know for sure about it. In fact, Cassiopeia pretty much just flirts—and that's a part of her appeal to the men. She acts like she's above them all because of her royal blood, and when Lord Cheldthorpe does offer her a position as his mistress, she flat out refuses.
So whatever romantic buildup there is in the book really just fizzles down to nothing in the end.