Summary: Four dances that Sherlock taught Janine — and one he didn't.Never mind if it leads him into dangerous territory; how could Sherlock resist a case from Lady Smallwood that lets him use his dancing skills?
Tags: Janine Hawkins, Sherlock Holmes, Charles Augustus Magnussen, Lady Elizabeth Smallwood, Sherlock loves dancing, not a sociopath, old fashioned ideas of courtship, blackmail, workplace abuse, unrequited love, drug use/abuse, drama, case
Opening notes: Set during the month when the Watsons were on honeymoon and then back home without seeing Sherlock.
Prologue: Invitation to the DanceLady Smallwood's driver parks the Rolls in front of 221b, on the double yellow lines that were painted there after the bomb exploded across the street. She knows that it will show up on CCTV and be identified by Mycroft's people, but in the state she is in right now, she doesn't give a damn. If Mycroft hadn't been away, she would have told him about what had just happened in the club with that loathsome Magnussen. Little brother will have to do.
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Lady Smallwood leaves Baker Street at nine pm, and at 9.15, Sherlock is on the phone. During one of the pauses in the endless meal at John and Mary's wedding, he had found out from Janine that she worked in media — PA to none other than Charles Augustus Magnussen. Having stored that nugget in his Mind Palace, then been distracted by having to give his best man speech, he gave it no further thought. Well, he did have not one but three cases to solve before the dancing started — the Mayfly Man, the Bloody Grenadier and then the attempted murder of Major Sholto.
Now, however, a client's case demands his attention, and he takes out the nugget, dusts it off and thinks about it for a while. Janine is his perfect route in; he wonders what it would take to get her to help him out. Motivations of the human female elude him even more than those of men.
She answers on the fourth ring. "Hello?"
Not out of breath, or worse for drink, just… normal.
"Janine." He puts on his cheerful voice. "Sherlock Holmes here. I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"
"Hello!" Surprise and pleasure are evident in her voice. She gives one of her husky-throated laughs, "Chance would be a fine thing, Sherlock Holmes. I'm home alone, just me and a glass of Chardonnay, catching the latest Scandinavian thriller on the box. To what do I owe the honour of a call from the world's only consulting detective?" There is always a slight tease in her voice; he'd noticed that at the wedding.
"It has occurred to me that I never managed to get that dance with you."
"Well, that was my loss, I can tell ya. Made the biggest mistake there, but then I didn't have you to stop me. Met him on the dance floor while you were up there playing the waltz on your fiddle, so you couldn't save me from Mister Clingy."
Sherlock stares at his phone. Mister Clingy?
"He was a great dancer, and an even better kisser but Lordy, it took me ages to get rid of him the next morning."
"Then you succeeded in your ambition of going home from the wedding with someone to have sex with?" He puts it as mildly as he can. He is not adept at innuendo.
"Yeah, but if you'd done your super x ray vision thing, you probably could have told me he was a mistake — not bad in bed, but oh so sure that I was the love of his life. Pity was, he sure wasn't mine; poor as a church mouse. So, what's a girl to do?"
"Not being one, I have no idea. What is a girl to do?" He is getting slightly distracted by the line of conversation.
"Well, keep trying, I guess. Someday my prince will come, as Disney would have us believe."
He briefly wonders what a disney is—something he's deleted?—before returning to the reason for his call. "While you're waiting, I wondered if you meant it about wanting to learn how to dance. I could teach you."
"Oh." She sounds genuinely surprised. "Proper dancing, like the ballroom stuff?"
"Well, I'm assuming that your purpose in learning would be to attract some suitable young man. The statistics show that those males who are competent ballroom dancers come from a higher socio-economic group, with significantly better educational achievement, and from an income bracket that would be attractive to you. Clubbers and those attending raves at your age aren't really husband material, are they?"
"Right you are about that; I'm past the Ibiza boys. It's not about getting into the sack; it's about buying the house and having the kids. John and Mary have got the right idea. I'm just an old- fashioned girl, as me mam would say."
"So, you'd be willing?"
"Well, why not give it a whirl? Yeah. When?"
"Tomorrow night? I'll book a dance studio in Covent Garden. I'll bring some music and we can take it from there."
"I get off at six… Could be there by six-thirty."
Sherlock knows where she works. Magnussen's office had been one of the first parts of his research. "It's within walking distance from your office; it shouldn't take you thirty minutes."
"Me, walk?" Janine's laughter grates on his ear a bit; luckily, she can't see him grimace. "You haven't seen the heels my boss makes me wear. All the one-way streets seem designed to add to the taxi cost, but when I've got sore feet it's worth every penny. Text me the address tomorrow. London's still a bit of a mystery to me."
"Right. See you tomorrow evening. Bye."
Is it really going to be this easy? Case work where he has a legitimate excuse to dance is a prospect just too good to be true.