Dancing With The Devil (part two)

Prologue

Just outside Copenhagen, 1985

The beautiful Grace Hansel descended the large staircase into the meeting area of her grand house. She was wearing a baggy white jumper that was tucked into a long denim skirt that reached her knees. Her black healed boots clicked down onto the wooden floor and her short hair bounced off her shoulders as she jumped off the last step. She made her way over the entrance area to her husband's office with one hand in her pocket and the other free to twist the door knob of the office door. Without realising that there was no-one there, she spoke in her foreign English accent.

"Honey, Astrid wants you to come and say good night." She called into the office. When she realised that her husband wasn't there, her eyebrows knotted into a frown as she stepped into the office, "Lucas?"

There was no reply. She sighed and slowly walked around the desk to stand in front of the chair behind the desk. She glanced down at the desk and noticed several notes and pieces of paper strewn around the place. One thing caught her attention. She craned her neck to the side as she reached to remove the paper from underneath a book, until she heard her husband enter the room. She looked up quickly to see Lucas standing in the doorway. He smiled and walked up to the desk.

"Hi, urm ...Astrid wanted you upstairs." She said as she walked back round the desk, "to say goodnight."

"I'll head up there now."

"Great ...urm." she stuttered, before gesturing to the heaps of paper on his desk, "what's all this?"

"It's just work stuff." He placed a hand on his wife's back, gently guiding her out of the office.

They headed back up the stairs together, Grace frowning internally at her husbands secrecy. When they reached their two-year-old daughters' bedroom, they found the young maid, Ana, kneeling down on a mat with the small child sat clumsily in front of her. The young child noticed her father enter the room and giggled softy, before raising her small hands excitedly up, motioning for him to come forward and pick her up. The tall man scooped up his daughter, whispering softly in her ear.

"Hej med dig." he whispered, causing Astrid to giggle and wave.

"Hej far." the girl smiled back causing her father to chuckled and set her down in the large cot in the corner of the room.

The girl stood up in the cot, using the bars to hold herself up. Her face met that of her fathers, who had leant down to her height. They spent a good few minutes looking into each others eyes. Lucas was aware that she didn't look like him. She had blonde hair like her mother and blue eyes like her mother. The only thing that linked them was blood.

Lucas rubbed his daughters hair lovingly and kissed her on the head, before walking back towards where his wife was stood in the doorway. She smiled up at him, her eyes following his every move. He walked out of the door and back down the stairs, leaving his wife in the nursery.

Grace sighed and went into the nursery. She approached her daughter who was beginning to show signs of tiredness. The girl flopped down and slowly fell into a soft slumber, leaving her mother to gaze lovingly into the crib.

"Nothing's going to happen to you." the woman whispered protectively to her child, "I promise you that."

And with that, she kissed her on the head and left the room.

(A/N 'Hej med dig' means 'Hello There' and 'Hej far' means 'Hello Father' in Danish)