The Price {Completed}

Chapter Five

                "Lennox thinks keeping them isolated is going to help them dance, but instead even the sight of a mustache drives them to hysterics," he said.

                "If any of those boys asked Gertrude to marry them, she'd do it in a heartbeat," I said, my smile dying. "They're so lonely."

                Ferdinand leaned next to me on the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. "I noticed. The Lennox Company is very cold."

                A fierce need to protect Mr. Lennox and his ways heated my stomach. "It gets results. How would we dance these roles if we were thinking of ourselves or some silly boy waiting for us? How can you be Time or Death or Humanity if you are still Nadia or Gertrude?"

                Ferdinand's eyebrows drew together. "You can be Nadia and still dance your part to perfection."

                "No, I can't," I replied, tightening my jaw and fighting the urge to stomp away from him.

                He sighed. "Let's not fight. You were just knocked in the head and soaked with champagne. I feel bad arguing with you after all that."

                "Fine."

Silence grew between us until Ferdinand spoke. "Where did you learn to dance? Sometimes I wonder if you weren't born able to pirouette, since I can't imagine anyone teaching you such grace."

                "I took lessons when I was a child," I replied. I could have stopped there, and it would have been a perfectly true and perfectly safe answer to his question. Yet as he watched me, I felt something welling from inside, pushing the rest of the story to the surface. "That was when I was with my family. It was... It was when my mother came to fetch me that the Vigilant Men riots began. I lost her in the panic. Mr. Lennox found me and kept me safe. He's the one who taught me how to really dance. Everything I know comes from him."

                "I'm sorry," he said. "Many of my father's friends died in those riots. I can't imagine what you must have gone through, being lost in them."

                I shrugged. "It was many years ago. I try to think of the present."

Ferdinand pushed away from the wall and stepped in front of me. He offered his hand and I took it slowly, unsure what he meant to do. Palm-to-palm, he pulled me toward him and rested his other hand on my back. We began to move slowly to what little of the waltz music we could hear through the door. I struggled to keep up, staring at his feet to try and figure out the moves.

                Once I had more-or-less the hang of it, I glanced up at his blue eyes staring down at me. "I've told you where I learned to dance, so now it's your turn to share," I said.

                "A tutor from age three to seven," he replied promptly. "I was a bloody handful and my mother just wanted something to get the energy out of me. It was only to last until I went to boarding school, but I found I rather enjoyed dancing and I begged her to let me continue. I joined the Rumonin National's school when I was thirteen, and I've been learning there up until now."

                "Quite the dance education," I said.

                His smile was lopsided. "Still not as good at it as you are."

                "You're a gorgeous dancer," I protested. He raised his eyebrow. "Really. I can see why you shot to stardom so fast. There's this energy inside of you. Like that feeling you get when you try not to cry. Your movements are heartfelt."