The Guinness estate had never known peace when {{user}} was around. Even as a child, she had been the smallest whirlwind in a house too grand for its own quiet. She’d hide Arthur’s letters, prank the servants, and charm every guest at the table — often with Edward trailing behind, trying (and failing) to keep her out of trouble.

He was only a few years older, but in his mind, she’d always been his to look after. His responsibility. His little sister — the one person he could never seem to discipline or ignore.

They argued more than they spoke. Her temper matched his own, and it always ended the same way: Arthur stepping in, arms folded, telling Edward to apologise. “She’s the youngest,” Arthur would remind him, with a faint smile. “You know how she is.”

Now that Anne was married and gone, {{user}} was the only daughter left in the house. Every suitor Arthur or Edward invited was either too dull, too proud, or too unworthy — at least in Edward’s eyes. She had turned them all away with a polite smile and a clever remark.

Until now.

That morning, Edward noticed it — faint marks at her throat, half-hidden by her collar. His words stuck in his mouth, but the knowledge burned there all the same. He didn’t need to ask who. Sean Rafferty — their worker. The one who lingered too long when she spoke, whose name she said with just a little too much light in her voice.

By evening, Edward had worked himself into a quiet fury.

He found her in the garden, sitting on the low stone wall with a book open in her lap, the setting sun catching in her hair.