Page 43 of Devil in Her Details

“I don’t suppose you have a name?” she asked the man since he gave no sign of offering it up.

“Saint.”

“Not very saint-like,” she muttered beneath her breath. More like the exact opposite. This brother didn’t seem to care for her at all.

“I’m not called Saint because I’m a saint.”

She arched a brow. “Why are you called Saint, then?”

He simply stared at her.

Ah, so another thing a non-family member couldn’t know. “Your mother must have thought highly of you to name you such.”

“My mother didn’t think much of me at all since she killed herself over a lover and left me to the gutters.”

Lilly’s face flushed. Blazes. How did a lady respond to such frankness? But then, she suspected he meant to shock her. No amount of breeding had taught her to respond to such a taunt. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

He snorted, giving her his back.

Urgh.

They must all know she was a daughter of a duke and find her suspicious. She sighed. There was so much more to her than that moniker.

Daughter of a duke . . .

That revealed nothing about her except her birth. Was that the most important thing? Well, yes, in her world. But that didn’t define a person, did it?

No, it did not.

But it did define their stations. At least the foundational part. Though the truth was, she didn’t rightly know anymore since she hadn’t met anyone like these men before. “I suppose you think me a—”

“I think nothing of you.” Saint didn’t even look at her when he said it. “Women like you are decoration in a world you’ll never actually have to survive. Go home, Lady Lilly. This one isn’t yours to visit.”

Lilly froze, her heart sinking. Fortunately, before she could curse the beast, Knight entered and nodded. “Come.”

“Thank God.” Lilly set off after him, surprised when the rude one, Saint, followed. She ignored him, not eager to be verbally cut down again.

Lilly suddenly exhausted to the point her feet didn’t want to move anymore. This was just too much, wasn’t it? She’d done nothing wrong, yet it felt like she’d entered their den riddled with the pox! What woman, no matter her birth, would willingly wish to be treated this way?

Not her!

It was clear these men didn’t appreciate her presence or her prying into their lives, so after they returned her home, would it not be best to part ways? She would officially pen a note to Dagger and reimburse him for his trouble with coin, like it should have been from the start. And if he refused to accept payment and held her accountable to their original deal, she’d peck him on his cheek and be done.

Then they could both return to how things had been before they’d met each other. Before he had muddled her mind with his confusing behavior. Before he’d made her want things she had no business wanting.

*

Dagger yanked the man’s head back by his hair. “Where is that rat marquess?”

“Like I said earlier, I don’t know nothing about a marquess.”

“But here’s the thing, boy, I don’t believe you.” He tossed the man back to the ground, frustration driving hard on him.

“He might not know,” Reaper said unhelpfully, flicking his coin into the air.

“He knows something,” Dagger growled, and he was bloody determined to find out what. “And I want to know what he knows.”

“I know nothing,” the man snapped, curling into a ball before pushing himself onto his knees, the arms tied behind his back straining. “A fellow came to the Stag and paid us in advance.”