CI: Take Me Anywhere Chapter Four

“Agh!”

Goren cautiously followed the exasperated echoed tones he recognized as Alex’s down the hall and around the corner. When he had arrived that morning, instead of getting the itinerary of her schedule, like he normally did, he was told cryptically by the secretary that he would “find her in the third ballroom.” Goren didn’t like when he didn’t get concrete answers to his questions, and he would have been concerned if it weren’t for the gleam in the eye and half smile of the woman.

Alex didn’t know he received daily printouts of her schedule, which covered her whereabouts for not only every waking second, but her sleeping arrangements as well. They also told him who she’d be with at all times. In addition he regularly viewed the phone records that tracked incoming and outgoing calls, looking for patterns and suspicious area codes. These printouts gave him a plethora of information: That Alex did not have a significant other nor was she dating. And that she cleared out time in her schedule, almost every day, to call her father’s family in New York to speak with her aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. She was big on getting her required eight hours sleep and didn’t sacrifice those precious hours for anyone, least of all royalty-related activities – “high-heel boot camp training”, she called it.

After a long discussion and for convenience’s sake she had at least been convinced to leave her apartment and sleep in her room in the castle instead. “Sleep” being the operative word because she refused to give up her old place, despite the rent. Goren noted that soon he have to go over her apartment to get the layout – map out entrances and exits -- should anything ever happen. He’d been given the key to her apartment by her father, but he didn’t feel right using it to break in. He needed to get Alex’s okay first, or at least be invited.

Bobby gingerly approached the ballroom, where music (something from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concertos, if he wasn’t mistaken) was wafting out of a phonograph Goren was sure they stopped making in 1848. He waved back a few household helpers who were finding enjoyment in eavesdropping and peered around the door, not allowing his full body to come into view.

Alex and a man of a dignified sixty stood in the center of the vast floor, the design on which was spiraled like the yellow brick road. The man had his right hand on her waist, which Goren could tell she didn’t like by the barely hidden distaste on her face and stiffness of her posture, which Bobby could tell wasn’t just for the sake of proper form. The man’s left hand was joined in hers, held out to their side.

She was wearing a zip-up hoodie, jeans, and delicate heels that glinted when the light from the tall windows hit them just so. Every few moments, Alex would wrench her hand out of the gentleman’s to yank at the bottom of the sweatshirt, which kept riding up, exposing the bare skin of her hip to his instructing touch. When she did this, she would shortly lose her focus and wobble on her heels before quickly righting herself.

“Your Highness. . .” the man insisted, exasperated, sounding to Goren like he was yet again starting in on an argument that they’d had before.

“Alex,” she insisted a little more forcefully than she might of had she not been stressed and frustrated. Bobby got the sense this was not the first time she’d had to tell the man to call her something other than “Your Highness.”

Neither of them looked particularly happy to be there.

“Perhaps we should call it a day,” offered the man.

“Perhaps we should,” repeated Alex in an overly chipper imitation of his stiff accent, forcibly shrugging off his hands.

The man quickly gathered himself and heeled it out of the room.

Bobby entered, watching Alex take deep breaths and fiddle with her high heels that looked to be giving her blisters. She hopped on one heel and mouthed “Ow” a few times.

“What was that all about?” he ventured, bending at the waist to follow the man out of the room.

Alex spun to face him. “Dancing,” she spat, unconcerned with Bobby’s sudden appearance. On the contrary, even only after a few days, Alex had come to accept him as just an aspect of her life, one she expected even. She’d even caught herself seeking him out in a room once or twice, which momentarily disconcerted her for a bevy of reasons. “I have to learn to dance,” she motioned to the music that was wafting from the record player “because apparently this country has yet to come into the twenty-first century,” she yelled out to where the man had just existed. “And me and Jeeves there don’t exactly get along,” she hitched her thumb to where the man had stood.

Goren smiled, nodding in understanding. “It’s not that hard,” he commented, walking further onto the floor.

Alex turned her bad mood onto him, putting her hands on her waist, “Oh yeah, hot shot? You going to tell me that in one of those many places you’re from you were a competitive flamingo dancer?”

Goren grinned at her, “Not exactly,” he shrugged, “I just like to dance.”

She folded her arms, “Well so do I but this isn’t exactly ABBA, now is it?”

He approached her and despite the strange look she gave him, took her in his arms. Her arms automatically joined his in the now engrained position. “Now, what have you learned so far?” he asked, looking down at her.

Alex blanched but quickly recovered, “Something that had a one-two-three, one-two-three in it,” not objecting that he hadn’t done the formal ask and bow first and instead had been so bold as to simply take hold of her.

Bobby nodded, “A minuet,” he commented, “which is strange because a minuet is usually the third movement in a symphony or string quartet,” he ruminated aloud. Her brows arched in an are-you-kidding-me look he was beginning to recognize, “Right,” he quickly amended, looking down at his feet, “not relevant. Okay, we can start there.”

The record player skipped for a moment, and then a simple violin began to echo against the walls; a much less intimidating tune. Bobby gently pushed her away and made an exaggerated bow. Alex laughed despite herself, the first real laugh she could remember in days, and made a curtsy of her own. Bobby was glad to see her smile as they met again in the middle of the floor.

As he slowly moved them in circles, he could feel her body clench, her face contorted with concentration. “Don’t count,” Bobby interrupted her, causing her to glance up from where she was watching her feet, “Don’t count,” he insisted, shaking his head. “Just move with me.”

“Easier said than done,” she grumbled, trying to will her muscles to relax. Alex’s natural inclination was not to be led.

He leaned in much closer than Jeeves had and spoke softly into her ear, her forehead brushed his chest, “You gotta trust me, Alex,” she closed her eyes at the feeling of his breath on her skin, the slight plead in his deep timbre. “Let me lead. Don’t try to be three steps ahead of me.”

Alex couldn’t help but smile at the mere thought of it, “I doubt anybody has ever been three steps ahead of you at anything.”

She breathed deep and exhaled slowly, letting go – letting all of it go – and just moved. He turned them in patterns she hadn’t even learned yet, patterns she probably would have deemed too difficult, but with him – when they moved together – they weren’t. He didn’t even keep hold of her the whole time. He’d gently let go, smoothly advancing her into a spin, finishing with her back pressed against his chest. She arched her neck back towards him, almost to question the closeness of their bodies, but before she could fully form the thought in her head, he’d spin her out again, moving them with more refinement than she thought she was capable of and with more grace than a man of his stature ought to have.

As the last notes trickled from the antique machine he spun her, one last time, gracefully away from him.

When their eyes met, Bobby bowed again, “Thank you for the dance, Your Highness.” With a gentle smile he swept out of the room, leaving Alex in a considerably better mood. She hadn’t even noticed to object when he called her “Your Highness.”

TBC