Chapter 1
The last time I had seen this house it had been a burnt out shell. I had stepped out of my coach on a rainy morning, not too dissimilar to this one, umbrella in hand and watched my world crumble.
That had been two years ago, last month I had discovered that not all of the Phantomhive's had perished in the fire and I had come as quickly as I could. I had been living in hell for the last two years up until a few months ago when Paula had come across me or perhaps I had come across Paula in the East End of London and she had insisted on taking me back to Midford Manor. Since then I had worked as a sort of family butler slash play mate for Elizabeth. I had insisted on being allowed to work, after all I had to pay for my keep. It would have wounded my pride to return home and killed me to join a convent like I was supposed to. The Midford's had been kind to me, though we hadn't spoken since the Phantomhive fire, with the Marchioness Francis Midford delighting in training me as some kind of protégée. And, of course, I loved dear Elizabeth like a sister, she was now as good as (if not better than) me when it came to fencing- not that I would ever admit that to her, of course. But I felt hurt, betrayed even, and absolutely furious when I discovered the other morning at breakfast that they had received a letter from the Phantomhive's country residence. Ciel was alive, Ciel had survived the fire and no one had bothered to tell me! I had left as soon as I could and travelled by coach to the spot where I now stood. I hadn't really believed it to be true until now, but here stood the manor, just as it had two years ago. It looked no different, the rebuild was completely identical.
I squeezed the handle of my umbrella, alright it was time to stop putting this off. Taking a deep steadying breath, I marched purposefully towards the huge front doors and hammered on the wood.
/
I turned around, facing the rain sheeting down from the porch, my coach had already ridden off, it was too late to turn back now. Anticipation and fear of disappointment squirmed in my stomach. I was just considering knocking again, when slowly the door inched open. Trying my best to hide my surprise, I took in the figure in front of me. He couldn't have been much older than myself, but he was certainly smaller than me, with blonde hair and blue eyes. This wasn't Ciel nor any of the servants I knew. I wondered if perhaps I was mistaken and a new family lived here now.
"Hello!?" We asked in unison, looking at each other wide eyed. "I'm sorry," I continued, "I'm here to see the Earl Phantomhive, is he in?"
"N-no, the young master is out at the moment, is he expecting you?"
I breathed a sigh of relief; the young master, that had to be Ciel. "No, he isn't, but I'm sure he won't object to me waiting, what time will he be back?"
"Lunch time I think, but you can't just come in," he put a hand across the opening to stop me from entering the house.
I smiled at him, he might have been around my age, but I was already considering him a lot younger than myself. "Who are you exactly?"
"Finnian," he waited, looking at me expectantly, as if that explained everything. I raised an eyebrow and he jumped slightly, colouring, "Oh, the- the gardener."
"Right, well I'm just going to wait for Ciel in his study," I was talking slowly so he understood every word. Laying my hand on his arm, I pushed it away while trying to get through the door. I stopped in surprise when his hand didn't move; this child, whoever he was, was obviously a lot stronger than he looked. "I'm an old friend of Ciel's, he won't mind me waiting."
The boy, Finnian, wavered for a second and I took my chance. I ran past him and up the main stairs, because this wasn't an opportunity I was going to miss. I came to a stand still in an office that had once belonged to Vincent, Ciel's father. It looked almost the same, like I had just stepped back in time. Finnian appeared in the doorway, "You can't wait here, the young master said-"
"Never mind what the young master said, look if you're that worried about what I'm going to do you can wait with me if you like."
"Oh, well," Finnian blinked, "it's just, we're meant to be making the young master's lunch, for when he returns."
"Oh, are you the cook as well?" It wasn't what I expected of the Phantomhive's, but perhaps Ciel didn't mind his servants playing multiple roles.
"No, Baldroy's the cook, but we're all helping, we want it to be perfect when the young master returns."
"Right," I nodded, "how many servants are there?"
"Three- no, four. No, wait, five."
"Err, right, well if you don't trust me alone in the house, I can help you all with lunch."
"Oh, okay," the boy brightened instantly and took my wrist, leading me out of the room.
/
"Would you mind letting go of my hand," I gasped, gaping at the bruise already flourishing on my wrist; Ciel was certainly well protected if all of his servants were like this. "Do you know what Ciel does?"
"Yeah, he owns the Funtom company."
"Does he!?" I didn't know that, but I often saw the products in shop windows. The brats of the upper class went mad for Funtom. But that wasn't what I meant. I wondered if Ciel had kept up the family business, but looking at the boy in front of me, I decided he didn't know. I could tell from the brightness in his eyes that he was about to tell me in great detail about the joys of Funtom, when thankfully we arrived at the kitchen door and it opened in front of us.
"Oh there you are, Finny," the girl stopped short in the door way. She wasn't much taller than Finnian, with dark red hair and huge circular glasses. I guessed from her dress she was a maid and as she noticed me I watched in horror as the large plate she held in her hands slipped from her fingers and plummeted toward the ground. Dropping my umbrella, I dove forward snatching the plate before it smashed and straightened quickly. "Who," asked the girl, "is this?"
But before I could respond, I had pushed past her into the kitchen and was hurrying toward a man stooped over a plate with a blow torch. I hoped that the quickly blackening piece of meat wasn't meant for the Earl's lunch.
He glanced up and looked me up and down, "Who are you and what are you doing in my kitchen?"
"Never mind that; who are you and what are you doing to that piece of meat?"
He looked down at it surprised and said, "What do you mean?"
Taking the torch from his hand, I said, "You can't serve that, it'll be burnt outside and raw inside." I sighed and surveyed the servants before me. Judging by Finnian's performance, Ciel had chosen them based on their ability to protect him, but that didn't make them good at their job. "Alright," I said "let's make the Earl some lunch."
/
Two broken plates and a charred bowl of vegetables later, the four of us stood in the kitchen surveying our handy-work. Together we had managed to set the table and prepare an appropriate lunch for an earl, out in the hall I heard the clock strike quarter to one. "Ciel should be here soon, I had best go wait in the study."
"It'll be a lovely surprise for him," grinned Mey-Rin clasping her hands.
"I hope so," I nodded grinning to myself at the thought of seeing Ciel again. I had told my story (or some of it at least) to Finnian, Mey-Rin and Baldroy, who apparently thought me a lot more trustworthy now I had helped prepare lunch.
"I'll go with you, if y'want," suggested Baldroy, but I simply smiled, "Thank you, Baldroy, but I'll be quite alright. Ciel shouldn't be long, the Phantomhives are usually very punctual."
As Sebastian held the door for his master to enter the manor, he knew something was wrong. It wasn't the smell of well-cooked food or the lack of screaming coming from the kitchen or the fact that the servants weren't lined up ready to apologise for everything that had gone wrong, it wasn't even the unusual yet familiar scent on the air. He simply knew that someone was in the house that shouldn't be. He raced past the confused-looking Earl and followed the scent up to his master's study. There, in front of the desk, her back to the door was a tall woman; her long blonde hair fell freely and her black dress fell to her knees held out by petticoats, both very against the fashion of the time. Completely silently, he approached her.
It wasn't so much a sound of movement, but more a shift in the air, the sense of a presence behind me. I waited until I could feel breath moving my hair, then spun around, my hand reaching for a concealed knife, just in case. As I locked eyes with the tall, dark-haired man in a butler's tailcoat behind me, I had to stifle a gasp. I knew this man. I had met him at a party some months earlier, in disguise as the Frenchwoman Magritte. From the look on the man's face he hadn't made the connection.
"And who, may I ask, are you?" He slipped round me to scan the desk, probably making sure I hadn't taken anything of worth.
I lifted my chin, "I am the Midford family butler and I am here to see the Earl Phantomhive."
The man before me raised an eyebrow, "Butler-" he began when a voice sounded from the hallway "Sebastian, who is it?" A voice I knew all too well, "Sebastian, who's there? Ah, oh- And who are you?" As soon as he had entered the room his voice had become more adult, more mature, more in control, he almost sounded like his father. The little boy I had known was gone. "Who are you?" He demanded, repeating the question.
I turned to face the boy framed in the door way, "Ciel!?" I could hardly believe my eyes, as I watched his widen, all this time a little part of me had still entertained the idea that I might be wrong.
"Catherine!" He rushed toward me and I held him tight in my arms. "Oh Ciel! Where have you been? What happened to you? The fire, Ciel. Oh, what happened?" I leaned back, holding him at arms length taking everything in. Slowly, I raised my left hand to his face, rubbing my thumb over the patch that now covered his eye. "What happened to you? Where did you go?" I whispered it as if afraid of the answer, but he simply shook his head and moved to sit behind his desk.
"Well, what about you?" He exclaimed, "Where have you been? Why didn't you come visit me sooner?"
"I couldn't, Ciel, I've been away for two years, I only just found out you were here. Oh Ciel, all this time I thought you were... Dead," I could hardly the voice the last word, which seemed to encompass all my fears.
"The Midford's didn't tell you the young master was alive?" This sceptical question was voiced by the butler, who stood by his master's side watching me.
I pursed my lips and frowned, considering the last time we had met. He had been so different then to this cold, suspicious figure, but neither encouraged my trust. "No, they didn't. I think they thought I knew," I said shortly.
"The Midford's..." Began Ciel slowly.
"Yes," the butler answered for me, "she tells me she is their family butler."
I didn't feel the need to respond to that, after all what I had told the butler was true. Ciel looked at me in silence, but said nothing. "You've acquired new servants," I remarked, looking pointedly at the man whose eyes never wavered from me. He was the only person I'd seen in this place who wasn't a child or acted like one.
"This is my butler, Sebastian. Sebastian, this is Catherine," Ciel gestured between us.
I stepped forward at the introduction and held my hand out to the butler. An arrogant gesture of a noblewoman, one that I hadn't performed for many years, apparently being in this house, seeing Ciel was bringing back old habits. The butler stared at my outstretched fingers in surprise for a few awkward moments, then, as was the custom, pressed my gloved fingers to his lips. I half-curtsied to try and relieve my embarrassment at the arrogant act and stepped back. The butler looked over me, taking in my ridiculously-short knee-length dress, kid gloves and boots, untied hair and expensive looking umbrella. I could almost see in his eyes him considering my mannerisms, accent, the fact I called the Earl 'Ciel' and the butler of the Midfords' that he knew. "I had no idea," he said slowly and purposefully "that the Midfords' had acquired a new butler." He glanced at his master who had a smile playing across his face.
"Sebastian, meet Catherine, the Countess Roderick and my best friend." I couldn't help smirking, as I watched the butler's face colour, "Forgive me, your Ladyship, I had no idea."
"No matter," I waved off his bow, "one of the joys of being a servant to the Midfords is telling other families' servants that my father is the Earl Roderick and watching them squirm."
"You really are trying to drag his name through the dirt, aren't you?" Smiled Ciel.
"No! Well, I wasn't. I decided to make up for my wildness and intelligence and political views that are so unbecoming of a young lady by relinquishing my title. Yeah, that's right Ciel, I actually gave it up. I was going to join a convent, but I would have died from boredom if the discipline hadn't killed me first. So I've been living in the East End, near Whitechapel and because I was nowhere near the rich my disguise didn't have to be too thorough. I created a whole new life, a whole new person and I've been renting a room there since- since the fire. I've been living with the poorest of the poor and, oh Ciel, for them everyday is hell and that is all they know."
From the look of horror on Ciel's face, he would never consider doing such a thing, "But why?"
"I had to get away, I had to get away from all this," I gestured to the room around me and I didn't just mean the death of the Phantomhives but the parties and riches too, "So I left, you see now why I didn't know you were back. Ciel, I thought you had all perished in the fire, we had your funeral!
"A few months ago I bumped into Paula -you remember Paula- any way, to my shame she recognised me instantly and insisted I come with her. I think she was lost, so I escorted her back to a more respectable part of town, where we walked straight into the Marchioness. Now, it's one thing to refuse a maid, but quite another to refuse a marchioness and Francis on top of that. So I've been working for the Midfords -I insisted on working, I've got to pay my keep, you know- ever since. I love dear Elizabeth, of course, and Francis is wonderful, as is Alexis who reminds me so much of my father and Edward... It's still a little awkward with Edward, after everything... I never brought up the fire, it didn't seem appropriate and so they never said anything either. It wasn't until they received a letter from you at the end of last month that I even knew you were alive, Ciel.
"You have no idea what I went through, when I stepped out of my coach that morning to a burnt ruin. I had come as a surprise early the next morning, because I couldn't attend your birthday and because Vincent had sent me correspondence about an important matter he needed to discuss with me urgently. I don't suppose I'll ever know what that was about," I looked up at Ciel and he looked like a vulnerable little boy again, the best friend I used to know.
He bowed his head and said gravely, "And you have no idea what I went through during the time after I was taken from that fire."
I looked down, "No," I whispered "I don't."