The Guinness estate had never known peace when Chloe 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, Chloe 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