Gabrielle_Johnson_6482

“You must bear a child, Celia. what good is a woman who isn’t a mother? What good is an empty womb?”

“Especially when it’s a foreign womb, like yours…”

It’s not an easy life when you’re watched month after month, when all the blame is placed at your feet for your young husband having no heir. 

Celia Devon Tralhamir, Crown Princess of Havietten, waits every month with hope mingled with fear. 

A child will secure her future. But it will also bind her for life to a husband she neither loves or respects, who refuses to see her abilities. Is that what she wants?

Is she content to prioritise security over happiness, and be a wordless decorative vessel all her life?

Or is she brave enough to try to forge her own path and seize fulfilment on her own terms? Even in a society that cannot recognise individual brilliance in a mere woman.

A sequel to the WEBNOVEL book “Earning the Love of a Princess”, this novel follows another woman born into the Royal House of Devon, trying to fight the confines that threaten to stifle her happiness.

The Loneliest Ballad

28 November, 1371. St Ivan's Palace, Havietten.

Celia stepped into the dowager apartments and studied her surroundings with interest. She hadn't entered these particular rooms in months. Looking around, she noticed things were as neat and pretty as she remembered.

"A very good morning to you, Mother. You haven't been down to dinner for a while. How have you been?" Celia's tone was merry as called out to the older woman at the far end of the presence chamber, staring out a window.

Maura whirled around at the sound of her voice. Her face was deeply lined, framed in a bleached white wimple.

The former queen was back to wearing mourning clothes. She'd been loudly declaring for weeks to anyone who'd listen, her intention to wear the garments until her son rose from his bed and retook his throne as Havietten's true ruler.

Very well but you'll be waiting a rather long time for that, madam, Celia thought wryly.

Speaking Without Words