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

Tobin looked at his wife's belly with a worried frown, as if he already knew the baby's gender would disappoint him.

Seeing the king waver, Antony pressed his advantage further. "Sire, wouldn't it be safer to have another man to share the business of ruling with? Instead of relying only on two fragile little lives that can be snuffed out in a tragic instant?"

Listening to those words, Celia could feel the blackest, most violent rage building in her chest. It was so strong, it was visceral. She could almost taste it ugliness in the back of her throat.

"Get out." she heard herself hiss, low and dark, at the viscount.

Antony stared at her in surprise, as if he'd forgotten she was within earshot. Or as if even if she'd heard him, he hadn't expected her to reply. "Your Majesty-" he started in his cunning, soothing manner.

Tobin also craned his neck to look at her in puzzlement. "Wife, what is it-?"

A Change in Tactics