Chapter Text
The carriage wheels rattled over cobblestones, each jolt a reminder that her life was no longer the soft, private thing it had been just yesterday.
Belly Conklin sat pressed against the velvet seat, gloved hands folded tightly in her lap, her reflection catching and blurring in the darkened glass of the window. The lantern light painted her pale white gown in fleeting strokes as the city swept past, gowns and tailcoats already spilling toward the palace like bright ribbons in the night.
This was it, the moment she had dreamed of, dreaded, and counted down to in secret.
Tonight, she stepped into society not as a child or a younger sister, but as a young woman in her own right. A lady. A debutante. A girl with the power, at least in theory, to choose her future.
She tried to tell herself that was what thrilled her most: the idea that tonight might be the beginning of everything. The beginning of whispers and dances, of poems pressed into her hand, of flowers left on her doorstep. The beginning of her very own love story.
Belly had always believed in love. She had believed in it even when others laughed, when Steven teased her for scribbling verses into her diary or sighing over the endings of novels. She had believed in it when she had no proof it existed at all. She had believed in it because she wanted to, because deep down, she felt certain she was meant for it.
She wanted the kind of love that was all-consuming, the kind that made her chest ache, the kind that changed the shape of a life. And perhaps this season, she would find it. Perhaps amongst the gentlemen who would bow before her tonight, one would truly see her.
Perhaps she would be chosen, courted, adored. Perhaps she would finally begin the story she’d been waiting her whole life to write.
Her lips curved faintly at the thought. Yes, she was nervous about the Queen’s approval, nervous about the eyes of society, but beneath it all, there was a current of excitement that felt like it might lift her clean off her seat.
Because when she thought of love—when she dared to picture the face of the man who might inspire it—there was always one who came first, unbidden, no matter how she tried to push him away.
Conrad Fisher.
Her brother’s dearest friend. Her next-door neighbor. The boy who had grown up at her side, summer after summer, year after year. He had been there in every season of her life, laughing with Steven under the sun, sneaking sweets from kitchens, carrying her across streams when she tripped in the mud. Somewhere along the way, without her even realizing, he had shifted in her heart from a boy she admired into a tender secret she carried with her always.
He had been gone so long it almost hurt to say his name in her mind. Two years abroad for his studies, leaving boyhood behind in the echo of their summers together. He had turned eighteen in Paris—Paris, her own dream destination, the city she had conjured in secret sketches and journal entries since she was old enough to hold a pencil.
Her heart leapt at a certain memory, because it had never once crossed her mind—until it happened—that a simple pen and paper could keep them bound together despite the distance.
The first letter from him had arrived on a damp fall morning, the envelope smudged by travel, her name scrawled in his familiar, impatient hand. She remembered staring at it for a full minute, afraid to open it in case it was nothing more than a polite courtesy, the kind of note one might send to a family friend out of obligation.
But it hadn’t been like that at all.
His words had stumbled at first, almost awkward, as though he were uncertain if writing to her was even proper.
“I saw something today that reminded me of you.
A seashell pendant at a market in Lisbon.
The woman selling it insisted it was from the coast of Cornwall, but I think it looked like the ones you sketched last summer. I nearly bought it, but I didn’t trust myself not to lose it before I reached home.
Do you still sketch? I still remember when mother bought you those colourful paints, saying she would teach you all her secrets. I was so jealous, though I’d never admit it at the time. But then, I was never as good an artist as you. My notes always looked like the scribbles of a distracted schoolboy, while yours
Well, yours could have belonged in books
This is ridiculous, isn’t it?
Writing all of this down? But I thought you’d like to know
Conrad”
She had read that letter over and over, the edges worn soft from her fingertips. It was not a grand declaration, not even a secret meant only for her—but it was his, and he had chosen to send it to her. That was enough to make her feel giddy for days.
She could still recall exactly what she had written back to him, her hand trembling so much she’d nearly blotted the ink twice.
“You are wrong, it isn’t ridiculous at all. It is wonderful.
But I am glad you didn’t buy the seashell, for if you had lost it, I think my heart would have broken right alongside yours. Perhaps, when you are home again, you will take me to the shore and we will find one ourselves. Until then, I will have to be content with knowing that somewhere in Lisbon there is a pendant that reminded you of me.”
She had paused there, her heart hammering. It had felt far too much, far too revealing. So she added, quickly, lighter words to soften it:
“My studies are nothing so fine as yours, but I still sketch when I can, though never as neatly as I wish. Mama has planted roses along the garden wall, if they bloom as she hopes, I shall press one into my next letter and send it to you.
Steven says I will ruin the post, but I think you will forgive me and find it pretty.
A piece of home, with you.
Isabel.”
The memory still made her flush. How foolish it had felt to send that scrap of herself across oceans, not knowing if he would ever read it. But he had—and he had written back.
From then on, it became a rhythm all its own: two letters from him each month, give or take, depending on the distance, the weather, the roads. Sometimes three when fortune smiled, sometimes only one that had taken a circuitous route through half the continent. But always, eventually, there would be another. A new story of a concert hall in Vienna, of vineyards in France, of a lecture in Heidelberg. And sometimes, tucked between those grander descriptions, a single line that seemed meant only for her.
She had pressed the letters to her lips before tucking them away in her secret box, foolish girl that she was, and telling herself those letters meant something, when it was probably just him being friendly.
It had never been safe to confess it, even to herself. He was too close, too constant. And he had never once looked at her the way she looked at him.
Still, the thought of stepping into that glittering hall tonight without him seeing her—really seeing her—felt unbearable.
While she had lived out her days in the quiet of their seaside estate, he had crossed the continent, enrolled in a doctor’s program in Heidelberg, Germany—one of the finest universities of the age. He wrote of lectures in vast halls, of dissection chambers and physicians who had studied under men Belly had only ever read of in encyclopedias. He had written of ambition, of discovery, of knowledge she could scarcely dream of. And now he was finally home.
Across from her, Steven sprawled carelessly, one boot braced against the seat as though he were not about to step into the highest hall of the realm. His jaw was set in the same determined way as always, protective and too sure of himself. He was too busy muttering under his breath about the “wolves of the ton” circling his sister.
Belly smiled faintly. The Conklins and Fishers had always lived side by side, their estates divided by little more than a low stone wall and a path worn by decades of footsteps crossing between them. Summers had blurred into winters, childhood into youth, until the line between families hardly existed. Steven and Conrad inseparable. Jeremiah, Conrad’s younger brother, slipping easily into their games. Susannah Fisher a second mother, her laughter echoing across gardens and kitchens.
And Belly—always trailing behind, the younger sister, the girl with wide eyes and ink-stained fingers, unnoticed except when she tripped too close.
Now, she was to step into a ballroom not as Steven’s little sister, not as the girl who tagged along, but as Isabel Conklin, presented to the Queen herself.
The carriage slowed, wheels crunching against the palace gravel. Lanterns glowed golden in the night, casting long shadows across the steps where dozens of other carriages had already lined in wait. Through the window, Belly glimpsed the sweep of gowns, the gleam of jewels, the dizzying whirl of society at its finest.
Her mother reached for her hand, squeezing gently. “Remember, my darling, your curtsy is your crown. Give Her Majesty grace, and she may give you the season.”
Belly nodded, though her breath caught in her throat. She tried to steady her pulse, but her mother’s fingers lingered over hers, pressing warmth into her cold hands.
“And Isabel,” Mrs. Conklin added softly, her voice low enough that only her daughter could hear, “whether or not she names you the Diamond, you must know—” she paused, her eyes bright with certainty, “You are already beautiful. You always have been. No crown or queen can decide that.”
Belly blinked fast at her mother’s constant reassurance and love, and for just a moment, her nerves steadied.
When the herald’s voice boomed through the gilded hall, announcing her name, her knees nearly gave way anyway.
“Miss Isabel Conklin, presented by her mother, Mrs. Laurel Conklin, of the Conklin estate.”
Every face turned.
She moved forward, her mother at her side, her gown whispering over marble.
The first familiar face she spotted was Taylor’s. Already out in society the year before, she stood tall beside her mother, her smile dazzling and full of encouragement. Taylor gave the tiniest tilt of her head, equal parts triumph and excitement, and Belly’s chest eased just a little.
Further along, she caught sight of several girls from her painting lessons. Some, like Taylor, had been out since last year, while others, wide-eyed and fluttering their fans nervously, would make their debuts this very season. Their gazes lingered on her, a mixture of curiosity, admiration, and perhaps a little envy. Belly offered a faint smile in return, heart swelling with the strangeness of it all. Here she was, no longer a girl in the corner, but the one being presented.
Only then did her eyes shift further, drawn as though by instinct. And there they were:
The Fishers.
Jeremiah with his easy grin, already waving as though they were still children tumbling across lawns. Susannah with her luminous warmth, hands clasped in delight, her gaze glistening with pride as though Belly were her own daughter.
But no Conrad. The empty space in their row yawned at her, cruel and sharp.
She could have sworn she’d heard laughter and warm welcomes drifting from the Fisher estate that very morning. The unmistakable sounds of a family gathered in celebration.
Proof, if she needed it, that he was indeed home.
Her pulse fluttered as she remembered the letter he had sent only last month, his familiar hand scrawled across the page: “Less than twenty days now, and I shall be home.”
She had counted each one in secret, marking them off in her diary with almost childish anticipation. And now, at last, the day had come.
Yet his spot beside his brother remained empty.
Cutting through her thoughts as she reached the end of her walk, at the far end of the aisle, was the Queen.
Resplendent in gold, jewels glittering at her throat, her turban catching the light like a crown of stars. Her gaze bored into Belly as she approached, cool and heavy, as though she could strip away every illusion with a glance.
Belly inhaled, curtsied low, satin pooling around her in a perfect sweep.
She prayed, not for suitors or titles, not for diamonds or crowns, but for one thing alone.
That when she rose, she would be seen.