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

9 October, 1371. St Ivan's Palace, Havietten

A low, tortured sounding groan invaded Celia's slumbers.

At first, she thought the sound was just part of the dreams that had been tormenting her. Snippets of dreams about bloodshed, execution and being torn away from her little boys.

She opened her aching eyes and peered into the dimness around her. She saw she was in her bedchamber. The room was bathed in what looked like the grey of dawn's earliest light.

The groan broke through the silence again, low and anguished.

It was coming from very close by.

Celia turned slowly on the bed and found herself almost face to face with Tobin, startling her. He was still dressed in the previous evening's clothing, his beautifully pressed shirt now rumpled.

He spent the night here, just to make sure he could rub his triumph in my face for as long as possible.

No Ordinary Morning