The Devil's Playthings by Melissa Silvey Page A

fire red again. “We can’t go out in public if you keep doing that,” she whispered when he bent to kiss her forehead.
     
    “Oh we will go out. I want everyone to see you.” Every head turned at the theater, the pair was so striking most people actually gawked at them. He didn’t seem to mind. And from their box seat, with the opera glasses he purchased for her, she could see everything. She watched the Nutcracker, and he watched her. Her enjoyment far outweighed anything that he might have seen on the stage. And when she stood to cheer at the end, he stood too. As they left the theater, a beautiful woman turned to look at Luc.
     
    “ Lee? ” she called out, but when she walked toward him she shook her head, whispered “Pardon,” and walked away.
     
    She noticed his brow furrow, but when he turned back to Emma his smile was brighter than ever. “I like your hair like that,” Emma quipped when they were seated in the town car. He leaned over to quickly kiss her cheek. After the ballet they dined at a French restaurant, where he ordered in perfect French for both of them.
     
    “That was amazing,” she whispered over her glass of wine.
     
    “Don’t be amazed, I know everything,” he countered.
     
    “What’s my birthday,” she chimed.
     
    “January 15, you’re a Capricorn,” he responded.
     
    “What’s my mom’s birthday,” she smiled.
     
    “June 27,” he stated. Although she tried to sound light, he seemed bored.
     
    “What’s my mom’s, mom’s, mom’s, mom’s birthday,” she challenged.
     
    “November 12 ,” he stated blandly. “Her name was Sylvia Van Der Witte, she was Dutch. You look like her,” he offered. “Ahhhh, dinner,” he said when the food arrived. “Bon Appetite!”
     
    She ate silently, this new information just as shocking as anything else she’d learned. Because this to her seemed fun and exciting. Knowing everything, for a young woman who was uneducated, seemed like the highest achievement possible. But he seemed uninterested, so she decided not to pursue the subject.
     
    “She was very beautiful, Sylvia. She had fair hair and bright blue eyes. Her father married her off to a wealthy yet older man for a dowry. It was not common at the time, but it happened on occasion. She had an affair with a younger, attractive man and became pregnant. The older man was so excited to have a baby, as his looks had caused him to have no luck with women, and he’d never married only worked as a solicitor and became wealthier. His wife killed him slowly with poison. And when he was dead, she married her younger suitor, who spent all the money her husband left her on women and gambling.”
     
    He told the story as she ate, with only her expressions as response. “He spoiled your mom’s mom’s mom horribly while he was alive. He called her Mooie which means beautiful in Dutch. Her name was Lisabe th. And she was beautiful too.
     
    “Sylvia felt so ashamed, so horrifie d that she could kill a man who loved her and her daughter so much for someone who was attractive and young but didn’t really care for them at all. He only cared about himself and the older man’s money. When the money started to run out, he started to drink and beat his wife and his daughter. He had no excuse for his own failure, so he blamed it on women, and took it out on Sylvia and Lisabeth.
     
    “ When Lisabeth was old enough, she ran away to Germany with only a few coins in her pocket. She later came to America as a stowaway, and was raped by several of the crew men. She became pregnant. She met a wonderful man at a church in America who loved her fiercely. He was not beautiful like her, but he was a good man, and strong and a good worker. He wasn’t sure he believed her lie that she had lost her husband in Germany to illness, but he didn’t care. To him, she was the most precious thing in the world. And so was her daughter. Your mom’s mom.”
     
    “My grandmother Jessica,” she