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 September, 1370. St Ivan's Palace, Havietten

"What do you think our lives would be like if we were a married couple?" Celia asked lazily.

It was well after midnight and the two of them were sprawled on her bedchamber floor, on top of the blankets she'd pulled off the bed. The fire in the fireplace had nearly flickered out, making the room a touch chilly. She wrapped herself around Lucas's bare limbs for warmth.

"What kind of question is that?" he grinned at her, tickling her ribs.

"A serious one!" Celia wriggled in his embrace. "Pretend for a moment I'm not a princess. I'm not even Islian. I'm just some local noblewoman who took your fancy and you proposed marriage to. What do you think our life together would look like?"

"If you were a local noblewoman, I probably wouldn't have paid you much attention. You'd be illiterate and probably very boring to have a conversation with."

Flashback: What’s in a Name?