Author's note: A few months ago, my oldest brother introduced me to Black Butler, and I became an instant fan. I watched about 20 episodes during my last cold since I had copious amounts of time and no energy to do anything else. Since I am a devoted BB fan, what better tribute to its genius than by pairing it with Rurouni Kenshin (since I can't seem to write a fanfic story that does not base itself in the RK world) and Jane Austin? It's a triple crossover, so hang on to your hats and prepare yourself for madness!
Black Butler, Rurouni Kenshin, and Pride and Prejudice do not belong to me – I merely plagiarize liberally from them for my own twisted amusement.
The wan moon was partially veiled by a passing cloud as a lithe, black-clothed figure nimbly footed its way across the roof of the house, toes seeking footholds in the steep roof, and fingers gripping the tiles expertly. Eyes like blue diamonds glittered in the faint moonlight as two attentive ears perked in interest, their attention directed at a small window shuttered closed but with cracks that loosened narrow beams of light into the darkness.
The figure crept closer, feet and hands soundless on the roof as the faint sound of two voices echoed softly from the shuttered window. The grade of the roof by the window was particularly steep, seemingly insurmountable, but with catlike grace, the eavesdropper scaled upwards, fingers finding invisible perches and reaching for the window's ledge.
Unexpectedly, a foot slipped on an invisible patch of moss and suddenly the climber was left clutching empty air, arms flailing as gravity asserted itself quite pointedly and assertively. With a loud crunch, the would-be intruder fell directly into the prickly embrace of a shrub. There was some violent thrashing movements, and then a furious string of expletives cut through the night air.
Okina Bennet heard the noise and sighed to himself. I told Misao not to climb the roof around the window; it is far too steep and unstable, he thought irritably. Fatherly concern compelled him to hurry outside to ensure that his second-eldest daughter had not injured herself in her latest escapade, but the path out of his study was currently being blocked by his extremely animated and talkative wife.
"Mr. Bennet! Mr. Bennet! Have you heard? Netherland Park is at last let out!" The husband in question merely crooked an eyebrow a quarter of an inch, barely disturbing the stern wrinkles in his face in an entirely misguided hope that by remaining silent, his wife would drop the subject.
As he fully expected, she didn't. "Surely you must have heard of something," Mrs. Riko Bennet persisted, tugging a little at his sleeve and almost causing him accidentally slice his finger open on the blade he was patiently stropping. Mr. Okina Bennet merely sighed, then turned his back a little from his wife, intent on sharpening the knife and not giving his wife the slightest encouragement. Mrs. Bennet was so consumed with unburdening her mind to her husband that the noise of their daughter falling from the roof and landing with a noisy crash in some shrubbery had completely escaped her attention; with luck, it would stay that way. Otherwise, he would have an extremely irate wife to contend with.
Mr. Bennet's sharp ear caught the sound of another muffled curse from Misao and a fresh volley of agitated thrashing sounds, and he smiled thinly. If his daughter was making that much noise outside, she had obviously walked away from her shrubby encounter relatively unscathed. Some patient humoring of Riko would hopefully be enough to redirect her attention elsewhere so that he could join Misao outside.
The lady in question was entirely undissuaded and wholly intent on standing her ground. "Don't you want to know who has taken it?" Mrs. Bennet insisted, her hands beginning to twitch in the wild parabolas her husband knew only so well.
Giving in, Mr. Bennet responded over his shoulder, "Not particularly my dear, but you seem to be quite insistent on telling me, so I am all ears."
"Oh, you tease!" Mrs. Bennet replied, poking her husband on the shoulder as he dutifully put down the sharpened knife and turned his patient eyes towards his wife. "Well, Mrs. Long says that Netherland Park has been taken by a certain Mr. Yahiko Bingley, a young man of great wealth, four or five thousand a year. And even better, no wife! Why, he will have his pick of our five girls! What fortune!"
"That is of course, my dear, if he can be persuaded to marry one of them," Mr. Bennet reminded his wife practically who batted away the sentence with a flutter of her hands.
"Nonsense! Surely one of our girls will be just the thing to catch his eye!" Her face had risen to a high color and she could barely sit still with excitement. Knowing that there was no reasoning with her when she was in this state, Mr. Bingley reached for wry humor, his only refuge in the face of one of his wife's many wild hairs.
"Well, if it pleases you, my dear, I will straightaway visit this Mr. Bingley and inform him that he has my full permission to marry whichever of our girls suits his fancy. Although," Mr. Bennet picked up the kunai thoughtfully. "I must put in a good work for my little Misao." He tactfully omitted the fact that currently Misao was likely picking bark out of her teeth and checking herself for bruises after her unexpected tumble.
"Misao? My dear, must I remind you as I have done a thousand times, a girl who spends much of her day climbing trees and throwing knives is not likely to attract the eye of any gentleman, much less a rich one," Mrs. Bennet responded a little hotly. "Surely Tusbame, handsome and graceful as she is, will be much more likely to catch Mr. Bingley's eye. But you are always giving Misao preference."
"Well, my love, you were unable to provide me with boys, so I am beholden to you that you at least gave me a daughter with a good aim and excellent balance." Officially, Mr. Bennet was a gentleman desperately trying to maintain the standards of living someone of his station required on an inherited family fortune that was rapidly depleting. Unofficially, Mr. Bennet engaged in many ungentlemanly actions that his wife carefully avoided thinking overmuch about, involving espionage and weapons and which sometimes brought him home in torn, bloody clothes and hastily bandaged wounds that would add to his growing scar collection.
To Mrs. Bennet's eternal dismay, her second daughter Misao had shown a keen interest and aptitude for her father's unofficial line of work and he had been more than willing to teach her, despite her mother's endless admonitions that such activities would make it impossible for Misao to find any sort of decent husband and avoid incurring complete social ostracism. Only by eliciting a firm promise from both husband and daughter that they would keep Misao's activities a dead secret did Mrs. Bennet finally reluctantly allow her daughter to train in what she had long deemed as her husband's "outside interests" and kept reasonably quiet on those rare times she spotted father and daughter sneaking into the house in the dead of night, Misao unseemly garbed in trousers of all things and carrying weapons.
This had continued for the past ten years of Misao's life, and her mother had long given up any real aspiration that her daughter would make a decent marriage; her greatest hope for Misao was that not another living soul would discover what the girl got up to day and night. If word got out, the entire family would be ruined and there would be absolutely no reasonable way she could ever find husbands for her other four daughters. For Mrs. Bennet had only one goal in life and that was to see all of her daughters, with the reasonable exception of Misao, married off. She desperately hoped she could accomplish this goal before someone important happened to spot Misao scampering around with a brace of knives in her belt or a servant happened to blab the wrong word to the right person.
Mr. Bennet fingered the kunai thoughtfully, and Mrs. Bennet shivered to see it. No doubt her husband was itching to join Misao in the carefully guarded room where even the servants did not enter so that he could put Misao through yet another training session with the horrid-looking weapon. However, she had not finished with him yet. Giving her husband one of the looks that usually got her the results she wanted, Mrs. Bennet said in a mixture of exasperation and coaxing, "Mr. Bennet, you simply must visit Mr. Bingley."
"And why should I do that, my dear?" he responded wearily, eyes going to the kunai he was twirling absentmindedly in his fingertips.
"Because if you don't, it will be impossible for us to visit him, you silly man!" she burst out impatiently.
Mr. Bennet sighed. He never could get the hang of all the impossibly complex social rules that permeated their society and was astonished by his wife's ability to pay attention to the slightest of nuances. It was foolish to think that he was required to pay a call on a complete stranger simply so that his wife could then descent upon the poor man and begin her campaign to browbeat him into marrying one of their girls. But knowing that she would not rest until her mission was accomplished, he silently pledged to pay a call on Netherland Park and make his acquaintance with the illustrious Mr. Bingley.
God help the poor boy's soul.
"So your friend Mr. Bingley is settled in Netherland Park, is he Aoshi?" Lord Ciel Phantomhive sat carelessly in the high-backed chair, one leg slung over a cushioned arm, and languidly accepted a cup of tea from his ever-efficient butler, Sebastian Michaelis who stood poised and elegant as always, offering the beverage with flawless grace.
Mr. Aoshi Darcy eyed the butler narrowly, the faintest trace of a smile on his face. Sebastian was the only man who had ever faced him with the sword and ended in a draw, Aoshi's twin kodachi not enough to win the match which had ended with both men bleeding and eyes slitted in the heat of battle. Only the barest skim of civility had stayed Aoshi's hand, so determined was he to win the next round. We shall have another match again, Sebastian Michaelis, he promised himself silently. And I will wear the title of the strongest of the strong after it is over. Indeed, every time the men had crossed paths after their duel, that unspoken agreement would pass between them. But Aoshi knew that Sebastian lived and died by the word of his master and only on his command would the butler take up the sword again and face him.
His master. Turning his head away from the butler's tall frame, Aoshi cool eyes fell on the twelve year old lord of Phantomhive. A child. A mere child. Yet...when is the last time I have thought of him as a child? Aoshi questioned himself, automatically holding out his hand for the teacup and saucer Sebastian gracefully placed in his palm. Fine Wedgewood china and early flush Darjeeeling tea. He expected nothing less of the Phantomhive household.
No less of the lord itself. The one exposed eye, blue as the sea, was sharp and keen, missing nothing despite the patch covering the other orb. At the moment, its owner was silent, but Aoshi was familiar enough with Ciel to know that a vast chain of thoughts, plots, and ideas were methodically collecting inside that youthful head. Aoshi had not seen the lord of Phantomhive carefree and innocent since the Phantomhive manner had burnt to the ground, killing Ciel's family in the raging inferno. Like other concerned friends and acquaintances, he had assumed Ciel had died in the blaze and had been astonished when a month later the young lord appeared again and at his side an elegant, black-clothed figure that was his constant shadow.
"Yes, Yahiko Bingley has settled in quite nicely," Aoshi responded smoothly, lifting the cup to his lips. Perfect temperature, perfect steeping time. But then again, Sebastian did not do anything short of perfection. Aoshi's own butler Han'nya was excellent to a fault but even he could take a lesson or two from the pale, classically beautiful man currently bent over the teapot. In fact, Aoshi thought to himself with an inward smile, he long suspected that Han'nya secretly disliked Sebastian for that very same reason and maintained an unspoken but deeply felt one-sided rivalry that flared silently to life whenever the two men were in the same room.
"Good. He may be useful to our purposes," Ciel responded, his face taking on the stony expression Aoshi knew only too well. The older man gazed narrowly at his young companion, eyes cool and giving nothing away.
"More dogs for your kennel, Ciel?" Aoshi responded a trifle icily. He was one of a few men who familiarly addressed Lord Phantomhive by his Christian name and was welcome to do so.
Ciel's face grew harder. "Tell me, Aoshi, do you tire of barking?" he questioned darkly, one hand beginning to rub the blue sapphire ring on his thumb, a gesture Aoshi was quite familiar with; despite the guarded eye which hid the inner workings of his mind, Ciel's hands often betrayed him especially to those who knew him best.
Quietly, Aoshi responded, "The Darcys have never failed to serve the house of Phantomhive."
"No, you have not," the boy lord replied, almost sullenly. "And Phantomhive has not failed its guard dog duty for the Queen. Ever." The ring was rubbed again, and Aoshi stared at it pointedly.
"And what is it you wish for me to sniff out, Ciel?" Aoshi's icy voice grew business-like. "Has your butler failed to find you the information you need?" The last comment was thrown in Sebastian's direction, but the butler merely smiled enigmatically and said nothing
"Let's say that your contacts may be more useful in this case, Aoshi," Ciel responded coldly. "I am prepared to investigate all possible leads to find the information I need."
"Meaning that you currently are at a standstill," Aoshi interpreted smoothly for him, carefully stirring his tea with precise motions. Without a word, Sebastian stepped forward, elegantly proffering a pristine folder on a silver tray. Aoshi took it and began flipping through the contents, eyebrows raising a trifle. After a few minutes, he set the folder down on the table at his elbow.
"An interesting case, Ciel. I will inquire among my usual contacts." Letting a hint of something that sounded suspiciously like mild warmth into his voice, Aoshi continued, "A kennel mate of the Queen's watchdog must do his duty. And I shall see to it." Staring again at the boy across the room, Aoshi was struck anew by just how young the lad was. Such a heavy burden he bears, grimly but absolutely, he thought, feeling an unaccustomed curl of empathy rise up in him. He had known Ciel since the boy was just a few days old, born with a shadow across his soul and the weight of generations of duty lain across his tiny shoulders.
The queen's watchdog, Aoshi thought with a grim smile. And my chain is irrevocably linked to yours, Ciel Phantomhive.