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

2 January, 1371. St Ivan's Palace, Havietten.

Celia sat cross legged on the floor, watching as Gabriel babbled to himself and played quietly at her side. The black velvet skirt of her ermine trimmed mourning dress was spread around her like a fan. It was a jarring contrast next to the soft cream rug.

She knew she shouldn't really be hiding herself away in the North Tower. She'd been repeatedly told that there were a number of far more pressing matters that needed her attention, from choosing an expanded circle of ladies and maids-in-waiting to attend on her, to supervising the last of her possessions being moved into the ostentatious queenly apartments.

The latter activity was an especially fraught one. Queen Maura had been staring absolute daggers at her for the past two days, while the elder woman's belongings were being carried out of the suite and Celia's were carried in.

Ermine