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Quint does the smart thing and doesn’t answer. Ben, however, holds out his hands to keep digging his hole. “Clara⁠—”

“Someone ought to stay here, wander around, and keep an eye out for this fellow,” Quint breaks in.

“Oh, I don’t even know if I’m up to that,” I drawl, still glaring at Ben. “A morning of shopping has quite exhausted little ole me and my feminine sensibilities.”

Ben huffs a short breath of annoyance, and Quint again jumps in to rescue, this time sliding his arm around my waist and guiding me away. “I’ve been looking for just this excuse to get you all to myself, love,” he says with a forced smile.

I glance over my shoulder to see Ben and William exiting the lobby, expecting to see the possessiveness in Ben’s expression that he showed the day before at Quint’s obvious flirting. But he hasn’t given me a second thought, already talking with William, their expressions intent on the “dangerous” work before them.

“I wonder if he’s always been like this or if he lived in the Gilded Age too long,” I mutter. Opening doors is endearing and a gentlemanly trait many women don’t mind. This is downright sexist.

“Clara, don’t you think Ben is looking⁠—”

“If you want to stay in my good opinion, you shouldn’t finish that sentence.”

Quint once again takes my hand and places it through his arm to escort me through the hotel, tilting his head toward me and smiling fully, all his unease gone. “Yes, love.”

After we have lunch, which Quint insists on, we do wander around the hotel, sticking to the public areas like the restaurants, ordering sodas, and hanging around for half an hour or so before moving on to another one. After several hours of this, in which William and Ben check in with us once—really checking in with Quint, since I refuse to even look at Ben—I tug Quint outside, back to Prospect Park Plaza.

“Ben wouldn’t—” Quint begins before we exit, but a withering glare from me silences him.

“Nobody made Ben the lead on this mission,” I say, earning an eyebrow arch from Quint, possibly for the James Bond way I said it. “Anyway, if Gibbons isn’t rogue and is just trying to get home, he may be wandering the streets where he accidentally got his picture taken, knowing Dr. Cooper and Burke would send someone here when they saw it.”

“Quite right,” Quint says.

“Now you’re patronizing me,” I say as we start a circuit around the fountain.

He puts his hands in his pockets, still smiling cheerfully, which in turn brings a small smile to my lips. Being around him makes it hard for me to hang on to the indignation of Ben not trusting me. “I have always known you had your own mind,” he replies, then shakes his head. “I mean, from the moment I met you, it was obvious.” But his disoriented expression says he feels the same as I do—wondering why my memories are convinced of a life we’ve already spent together. “Your tone was very wistful last night when you said that Dad’s playing reminded you of how your own father played,” he says after several steps go by in silence, while I contemplate what those memories mean.

“My parents died in a fire four years ago.” It’s just more than I told Ben about my family but feels like an entire book more than that sentence. I grew close to Ben quickly, and our relationship necessitated those kinds of confidences. But Ben wears too much of a mask to break it down in the short time we’ve had and open the relationship into more. Telling Quint is natural—it’s useless to keep secrets when he already knows my soul.

His concerned expression is more serious than anything I’ve seen from him so far. “How terrible for you, Clara … may I call you Clara?” He stretches his hand across the actually-not-that-far distance between us, taking my hand and sliding his fingers through mine.

“Yes.”

He gazes at me as we walk, his eyes delving into me, studying me inside and out without saying a word. I have to turn away. Especially since I’m supposed to be watching out for Gibbons wandering this sidewalk. But the early evening air is warm, and the walk is so nice, hand in hand with this man I could almost mistake myself for being in love with. But even if I believed in things like meant for each other or fate destining us to be together, it’s ludicrous to think that my soulmate is Quint Allen. Ben makes much more sense.

“Your Aunt Vi took good care of you, though,” Quint says gently, squeezing my hand.

I stop, shocked. “How do you know that?”

He stares at me with the same surprise pulling his eyes wide and making his jaw slack. “I just … do. Who is your Aunt Vi?”

Still reeling from his words, I force myself to walk on and answer. “My father’s aunt. I was in college when they died, but I came to live with her for several months before going back. I don’t know how I would have survived it without her.”

“My mother’s mother died of influenza, but I was too young to have really been affected. She was … not involved in my childhood anyway.” He gives a soft chuckle. “So I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose someone you love that much.”

“It’s a lot like time-traveling,” I say. “Falling into a place where you’re not sure what’s going on or what to do, and it takes time to readjust and fit back into life.”

“I’m so sorry for what you had to go through, love.” He uses my hand to tug me close to him so we walk shoulder to shoulder.

I sigh with contentment. How would it have been to have Quint hold me then? Aunt Vi was the one to wrap her arms around me when the sobs were unstoppable and whisper that I’d be able to breathe again soon. But talking with Quint about the hole they’d left in my life patched it more than I could have imagined. It’s as though Aunt Vi applied a bandage, washing and caring for it—but it’s Quint who can truly heal me.

I have to distract myself from the connection. It can’t be real, and I need to get ahold of myself. Really, this is probably a product of watching too many period pieces and reading too many romance novels.

“What do you do besides flirt shamelessly, Quint?” I ask, lightening the topic.

“When I’m not entertaining lovely houseguests, I follow my father around or direct my mother’s charitable foundation.”