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

6 April, 1371. St Ivan's Palace, Havietten.

Tobin sat on the gilded throne inside the throne room, shifting every few seconds. Celia wasn't sure if he was uncomfortable or simply bored. Probably a bit of both.

She looked up at him from where she sat, on a smaller gilded stool at his side. They were both waiting for Viscount Nadrim's visit from Tyre. Rather than what Celia hoped would be a quiet meeting between the half brothers to try and reach some kind of agreement, Tobin was set on approaching it from what he called 'a position of strength.'

That meant meeting in the ridiculously gilded throne room, bedecked with his ermine trimmed robes of state. He'd insisted Celia also to dress up for the occasion, which is why she found herself trussed up in a blue silk dress encrusted with hundreds of freshwater pearls.

Two Brothers