Kuroshitsuji and all its characters belongs to Yana Toboso.
...
Sebastian paused from his reading; one finger marking his place as he listened with his head cocked sideways. He smiled thinly to himself.
Ah, there's nothing like hearing the lustful caterwauling of a tom in heat. It must be mating season again.
Normally he'd let it be, secretly delighting in the prospect of seeing kittens mewling about in the kitchen (sadly before the young master orders him to get rid of them), but this was an entirely different case.
For one thing, it was getting loud enough to wake up the young master, and Sebastian simply won't allow that to happen. Secondly, he alone cannot get rid of this particular disturbance. It's time to call upon a specialist…so to speak.
He sighed, hating to get up from his comfortable seat by the fireplace. As he exited the library, he briefly wondered whether he should bring his silver cutlery along, just in case.
Those fools, he darkly thought to himself. The least they could do was find the right damned window first.
He reached the maid's room and rapped smartly at the door. "Meirin?"
Pausing a moment, he listened to the faint shuffling going on at the other side. He knocked again. "Meirin? There's a small matter which requires your assistance. Please come out."
With a creak, the door opened, revealing the disheveled maid rubbing her eyes sleepily.
"I'm sorry for waking you up," Sebastian said, as sincerely as a political candidate, "But there's been a…disturbance, and I wish to handle it as quietly as possible."
Meirin immediately became alert at the mention of 'disturbance'. "Oh, no…is the manor under attack, Mr. Sebastian?" she asked. "How's the young ma-"
A gloved hand held up to her face prevented any further aimless babblings. "As I've said before, it's only a small matter. However, I would like to remind you that whatever you do during your free time is entirely up to you, so long as it doesn't interfere with your duties as a Phantomhive maid. But for the sake of preventing this same incident from happening again, do refrain from encouraging strays to follow you home."
"S-strays?"
The same hand curled into a finger imperiously beckoning her to follow. It was amazing how a pair of gloves could elicit such fearful control over the staff. It was like being ordered around by a tyrannical mime. Not for the first time, Meirin thought that Sebastian could usurp the Queen of England and rule Europe with those gloves if he wanted to.
Taking a moment to squeeze into her dressing gown, she bustled after the butler down the hallway. He led her into the music room, waiting by the balcony doors for her to catch up. As she approached him, she became increasingly aware of a rather familiar voice warbling from outside. A disturbingly familiar voice.
"Sweet Meirin, my beautiful rose; She's my little lady, that everyone knows…"
Her footsteps faltered as her face began to heat up. Oh, dear God…pleasenothim pleasenothim…
"Come along, Meirin. Let's settle this before the next millennium arrives, shall we? I'd much rather do it now, before the young master wakes up," Sebastian said briskly. He then softened his tone and gave her a warm smile, which didn't help improve the situation one bit. "Or would you rather bear the full consequences of facing an angry, sleep-deprived young master?"
"N-nossir! Sorry, sir!"
"Hm," he said, before turning around and pushing the doors open. The atrocious yowling abruptly stopped as he strode out to the balcony. "My, my…" he said pleasantly, "it's only the middle of June, and yet it seems as if the Christmas wassailers has come around early."
"Yo, Sebby! 'Sup!"
He visibly scowled, irritated by the unwelcome moniker…even more so by the sad twangings of a guitar being tortured by inexpert hands. "Can you please stop that? Thank you. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit…" he rattled off their names like a roll call: "Mr. Sutcliff, Mr. Knox and…Mr. Slingby, I believe?"
The three Reapers grinned widely back at him.
...
(A/N: The song that Ronald sang for Meirin was taken from this kinglaoghaire site. Dunno why, but when I copy the link here, it gets messed up. Tch.
Anyway, I googled for Victorian love songs and this is what I got.
Thanks for dropping by :) Please make yourselves comfortable.)