“Why should I go back?” she demanded. She’d pushed him as more of a reflex earlier, but now she rather thought she wouldn’t mind giving him a harder push or even a punch. “Hew is leaving and you think you can keep me from my father tomorrow night. Don’t say it!” she warned.
He closed his mouth. Then he took a deep breath. “You should go back because Hew needs you. He’s not as strong as he’s pretending. He’s in pain. The only way I got him to lie down was by promising to find you.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’ve been nursing him—or at least trying—for days.”
“Then if you care for him at all, come back. We can work out the details later.”
“We can work them out now.”
Galloway’s brown eyes seemed to blaze with anger, and she had a moment to worry that she might have pushed him too far. He took a slow breath. “It is a mystery to me how you have made it to the age of—how old are you?”
“As though I would own it to you!”
“Good—” He broke off and took another deep breath. He seemed to be breathing a lot. “I told Hew I would bring you back. What will it take for you to return with me?”
“You have to admit that my father is still alive.”
“No. Try again.”
“You have to allow me to go to the rendezvous with you.”
“No.”
“If you plan to deny my every request, then we are wasting our time. Good night, sir.”
“Make a reasonable request, Miss Howard.”
Belle thought for a moment. “Don’t send Hew back to your Farm until after the rendezvous tomorrow night.”
“I doubt he would go anyway.”
“And if he says I can go to the rendezvous, then you have to acquiesce.”
“Fine.” He held out his hand. She stared at it.
“That was a quick agreement.”
“He’ll never allow you to get anywhere near Hyde Park. I told you, he’s in love with you. He won’t want you even in the vicinity of danger.”
“You’re wrong,” she said.
“I doubt that, but out of curiosity, which part am I wrong about?”
“All of it. He’s not in love with me, and he will allow me to go. I can be persuasive when I want.”
“You can be demanding,” he said. “That much I see.” He held out his hand again, and she shook it.
Twenty minutes later they were in a hackney on the way back to Mivart’s. Belle didn’t know how she would persuade Arundel to let her go to Hyde Park tomorrow. Galloway was probably right. She would just demand it. After all she’d done for Hew Arundel, she deserved something in return.
Galloway had been blissfully silent for the last almost half hour, but she heard him take yet another breath and knew her luck had run out. “I haven’t known Hew Arundel long,” he said. “It will be a year in January, but I do know him well.”
Belle didn’t say anything, just wondered what Willoughby there, seated across from her, was getting at and wishing she had a cup of tea. She imagined it was because she could still smell it on her clothes and in her hair.
“You can’t spend so much time in close quarters and not come to know a man well. He hasn’t spoken much about his past. I know he’s been hurt. I know he is reluctant to trust. And I also know, in spite of all that, he is in love with you.”
“This again.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “Yes, this again, as you so elegantly put it. You don’t know him as well as I do.”
