Page 46 of I Know You

“Society pages?” Quint leans over where I’m hunched over a section of The New York Times.

“It could be anything,” I murmur, trying to keep my concentration when he stands so close. It feels good to be helping even if we haven’t discovered anything yet.

“Would you like to get dressed up and I can take you to one of those parties?” He wraps his arms around my waist from behind, and it’s tempting to abandon this endeavor and melt into his arms. Proving I’m meant to be here with Ben is more important, though.

I playfully shove Quint away. “Look, some English lord is getting married today at the Plaza. It could be something like that.”

He leans on the table next to the paper. “Shall we go find out? I’d love to dance with you in my arms again—I didn’t get long enough last night. I might never get enough.”

There’s such longing in his expression, it takes me several seconds to answer. “Keep looking, Casanova,” I chide, pressing a finger gently into his chest. He catches my hand there and holds it. I pull away, and we get back to work. It takes me far longer than it should to settle my delighted heart rate and concentrate after that.

By lunchtime, we have a few possibilities, which we send with a messenger to the area William and Ben had planned on doing their search that day.

Quint insists we deserve a reward for our hard detective work. He gets out the phonograph to dance with me in the library. I revel in the way he holds me, his arm around my waist, holding my left hand in his and waltzing slowly around the room. When the songs change to more upbeat tunes, he slides into a slow foxtrot, holding me close as he guides me in the steps. I close my eyes, certain that there must be moments like this scattered in our future. It’s too familiar not to be.

“Is this real, love?” he asks in a soft voice.

“It does feel like a dream, doesn’t it?”

“One of the good ones that I lie down and think of as I go to sleep so I can have it over and over.” He hums along softly to the music, singing a few of the lyrics now and again, and then says, “Dance with me forever, Clara.”

My heart shouts for me to agree, but I can’t. I stop, upset at myself for letting things go this far, even if it feels right. There’s Gibbons to think of. The mystery of my parents at The Villa.

Ben.

And in the end, I will have to leave Quint.

I step away from him. These moments are pointless and will only lead to heartbreak for us both. “Thank you for the dancing,” I say in a wobbly voice, hating that considering leaving him—as I have to—undoes me so much. I hurry toward the table we were working at, talking over my shoulder. “We should get back to work. I’ve gone on and on to Ben about how I can be useful, getting angry at him leaving me behind⁠—”

Quint catches my arm, pulling me to a stop. “What did I say?” His gaze searches me, confused and lost.

I shake my head. “Stop falling in love with me,” I whisper.

He nods, running his hands up and down my shoulders. “It was too late, even from that first moment I saw you.”

We go back to the table, and I scour the newspapers, intent on finding something, anything, helpful.

“You and Ben are…” Quint interrupts after a few silent minutes. “Romantically involved?” he finally asks, studying me.

I straighten, his questions flustering me. It’s true, I don’t know how to explain us, and the one time I’ve tried to tell Quint, I didn’t do a very good job. Something about things being complicated, and I’m not sure a man from 1928 would understand the nuances of “complicated.”

“I don’t know how to explain,” I say honestly.

Quint gives me the ghost of a smile. “What would you say to someone from the future who asked you?”

I let out a short laugh and shrug. “That we’re dating, but it’s not serious. We’re taking it slow because things happened fast in the beginning for us.”

Quint nods slowly, probably trying to digest concepts that aren’t completely familiar to him. His expression asks me for more.

“He saved me.” I tilt my head and press my lips together. “Without even questioning it, he stepped in and kept me from being thrown out of The Villa and stayed by me when I was so confused.” I swallow and frown, hating what my honesty will do to Quint, but it’s unfair to hold back. “There are times when I think that I am as destined to be with him as I feel destined to be with you.”

Quint nods and returns his attention to the newspaper, and silence settles over us again for a long time. Common sense says I should let Quint contemplate and come to the logical conclusion that it would be better to let me go—even though letting him go would be like losing my parents and Aunt Vi. He’s as much a part of me, a staple, as the “Waltz” to The Sleeping Beauty ballet of my life.

“You know, I remember your mother,” he says, leaning onto his elbows over the table. He’s trying to ensnare me, capture me, and make me stay in the moment with him. I don’t resist. “You have her grace,” he continues. I find myself choking up that Quint had known my mother, even if it was just for a few weeks when he was six years old.

“She was timeless,” I say when I can speak without the thickness of emotion. “Which makes so much more sense now. She loved old movies—from the 1940s.” I laugh at how that must sound and wonder if Quint even knows the term. “She made my dad dress up with her as classic film stars for Halloween, a different one every year. Nobody ever knew the difference but her. She bought party dresses at vintage shops, and she had a hat she claimed was some great-great-grandmother’s that she wore every chance she got.” I rest on my elbows too, so now we face each other over the table.

“I asked my mother once if Mrs. Granville was a princess,” Quint says. “And your mother said it was the most wonderful compliment she’d ever received.”