Content Warning: This Character Analysis section contains references to rape, sexual assault, and pregnancy loss.

Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser is the primary protagonist of this novel. She is a fierce, independent woman who is smart and knowledgeable, surviving in a time vastly different from her own. She is a nurse, and this knowledge allows her to help people who do not have the advantages of modern medicine. Claire does not have the ability to care for herself when she goes into pre-term labor and loses her first child, Faith. In her grief, Claire turns on the one man she has given up everything to be with, the one man she loves most passionately. Ironically, the reason she blames Jamie for the death of her child is because he entered a duel with Jack Randall, Frank’s ancestor, after she asked him to wait until Jack’s child was conceived to ensure Jack’s lineage and Frank’s existence.

Claire struggles throughout the novel within a Love Triangle. Her love for Jamie is passionate. Her love for Frank is quieter, more of a companionship than a romance. When she returns 1948, she tries to leave Frank because of the scandal of her pregnancy, but he refuses.