It was raining.
Not the tempest, violent storm that threatened to rip the sky in half. Just the kind of rain that settled into your bones and whispered that no sun was coming anytime soon.
The church had disappeared behind them half an hour ago. The Montclair carriage creaked along the stone-laid path toward the Montclair estate, toward the place Marcella had sworn never to return to, not after what it made her.
Inside the velvet-draped cabin, silence reigned. The kind of silence that had teeth.
Marcella sat rigidly, spine straight despite the ache in her lower back. Her wedding dress clung damply to her skin in places the rain had managed to reach. The cursed red pendant burned against her collarbone, warm despite everything. Like it remembered too.
