Chapter Seven

Butler, Bonded. Bride, Mourning

Sebastian, Marianne and Ciel stood in the graveyard, the sun setting over the grassy mound they walked down. The girl toyed with the petals of her white roses, black gloved hands trembling from the cold. Sebastian looked down at her, then glanced to the Young Master, who looked back at him with a solemn look on his face. Ciel nodded his head.

"Marianne, why don't you take us to your parents? Undertaker did say he wanted you to pay his respects for him." Sebastian said.

Marianne looked up at him with wide eyes, her teeth worrying her lip as her hands tightened on her bouquet.

"A-Alright… I'll take you to meet them." She glanced at the boy. "That is, if that's alright, Ciel."

"I want to meet them. We should pay our respects. There is also much we still don't know about you. It should tell us more about the story that brought you into our lives, don't you think?" said Ciel.

The girl bowed her head and nodded. She then started to lead them towards their destination.


The trio stopped at a small corner of the graveyard, occupied by a single, white gravestone. It was well-maintained and regularly cleaned, free of dead posies and debris. The names carved into the stone were neat, indicating an exceptional job done by Undertaker.

"Edward William Blackmore. 1843-1886. Beloved Husband and Father. Lilly Genevieve Blackmore nee Montague. 1847-1886. Cherished Daughter and Sister. Beloved Wife and Mother. May their Souls Rest Together Beyond the Shadow of Death." Ciel read.

Marianne smiled with tears in her eyes, placed her bouquet down on the joined grave, keeping a single white rose in her hand, and placed her lips to the stone. Sebastian rested a hand on her back once she was upright again, sending calming feelings through her body. While he held no feelings for people when they were buried in the ground, he didn't particularly care when they were living and breathing either, unless they were contracts or his mate. But these people before him were responsible for bringing his Marianne into the world, so he held a certain amount of respect for them.

"Undertaker mentioned they died in a carriage accident. I assume it happened shortly before we met," he said.

The girl gave a slight smile.

"I was on the streets for over a month before I ended up finding that warehouse, and they were killed a couple of weeks before that," she replied. "They had gone into London not long after my seventeenth birthday. Something happened while they were going through the streets, and they collided with another carriage. They died on impact. I could barely recognise them when Scotland Yard came to get me to identify them."


She was seventeen when the cloth was pulled away from their faces. A scream erupted from her mouth. Her parents… Her loving parents were battered and bloody. They weren't moving, or breathing. They were gone…


A darkness then moved across her face, a steely coldness entered her eyes.

"They called it an accident, but I know it was no such thing. On the morning they were about to leave, I saw that the wheels had been loosened on the carriage, so when it went over the cobbles in London, they would become unsteady and eventually snap, causing a collision that could easily kill them if they were moving fast enough. The driver they had that day got away without serious injury, and he disappeared straight after the accident, didn't even come back for his pay or ask for money for the repairs," she continued. "That was no accident. That was murder."

Ciel was immediately interested. It sounded like an intriguing puzzle.

"Do you have any idea who could have done it?" he asked. "Was it money, revenge, they were in trouble for something illegal?"

Marianne sneered.

"Nothing like that. We were a middle class family and they were both good people. My father was a bank clerk working through the ranks and came from a respectable family of parishioners up in Preston before moving out to live closer to London for his work. He met my mother in London, where she was working as a seamstress. She came from a working class background and was supporting two aging parents and a ne'er-do-well younger brother. They fell in love and courted for a year before they got married. Her parents died of pneumonia the winter before they married, giving their blessing before they passed."


Marianne was a little girl laughing with her mother and father outside of their house, which was a good size with white roses climbing up the walls. Her father sat with her in his lap, his dark hair hung loosely down to his collar and his dark blue eyes smiled as she leaned back against his broad body, dressed in a well-tailored suit. Her mother sat beside them, a book in her hands, and a smile on her pretty face. Her hair was as brown as her own and her eyes were pale green; she wore a nice dress that matched her eyes and her hair was styled into a ponytail curving over her shoulder. Their matching gold bands rested on their fingers.


"My father's family didn't approve of their love match. They wanted my father to marry a gentlewoman from the upper classes. It was why his sister, Aunt Henrietta, agreed to an arranged marriage to Uncle Julian, a man with excellent prospects and an impressive inheritance. His family weren't invited to their wedding, of course, and they never heard from each other, except when they announced Henrietta's marriage shortly after I was born. The connection wasn't renewed until over three years later. They came over on my second birthday to introduce my young cousin, Chastity…"


"Go up to your room, Marianne." Lilly whispered, pressing a kiss to Marianne's chubby cheek.

"Okay Mama."

She toddled out of the parlour.

Edward and Lilly went to the entrance foyer and smiled at their guests. A severe elderly couple, dressed in black from head to toe, with greying hair and glasses balanced on their noses. The man's eyes were brown and the woman's were dark blue. Next to them was a young woman, barely twenty, and holding a small infant in her arms. She wore a long, black dress, and a mourning veil was draped over her dark brown hair, which was pinned back in a high bun. Her brown eyes held the same severity.

"Edward, you seem to have done surprisingly well for yourself. Still working for the bank, I take it?" the older woman asked.

Edward gave her a worn smile.

"Mother… Actually, I got promoted a few months ago," he explained. "You remember my wife, Lilly?"

Lilly smiled prettily.

"It's good to see you again, Eva, William," she greeted. "And you look very well, Henrietta. I'm so sorry for the loss of your husband."

Henrietta acknowledged her with a nod of her head and walked past them into the parlour.

"Quite," was all she said. Henrietta then lifted the babe in her arms. "This is my daughter, Chastity. She was born shortly before Julian passed."

"She's very beautiful." Edward complimented.

Baby Chastity looked at everyone with blurry brown eyes, and scrunched up her face. Her skin was red and she looked on the verge of crying.

In the parlour they all sat down for tea. The silence was awkward to say the least. Edward took a sip of his tea when Eva finally spoke.

"Edward, are you ever going to come home?"

He barely managed to stop himself from choking.

"Mother, this is my home. This is where my family is, my work is. Why would I want to leave?"

William arched his grey brow.

"Family? Last I checked, you two don't have any children. Honestly, what use is a wife if she cannot birth children?" he bemoaned.

Lilly was about to speak up when Chastity began to bawl.

Her cries were loud and shrill, but they didn't block the sound of footsteps rushing down the stairs. The parlour door burst open and in stepped little Marianne.

"Mama, Papa, who is crying?" she asked in her high little voice.

Edward's parents and sister stared at her with wide eyes. Marianne ignored them as she walked up to the crying baby and climbed up onto the chaise so she was level with her.

"Hello there, I'm Marianne. There's no need to cry."

She pressed a little kiss to Chastity's forehead. The babe almost immediately stopped crying and looked up at her older cousin.

"What's her name, Mama?" Marianne asked.

"That's your cousin, Chastity." Lilly answered.

The little girl turned back to the baby.

"Hello Chastity. I think we're going to be good friends."

Chastity was captivated by her bright smile and giggled happily under her glow.

Edward picked up his daughter and held her close, Lilly's arm wrapped itself around his waist. They stood firm as they waited for the onslaught of questions.

"How old is she?!" Eva snapped.

Lilly was firm with her.

"She is two today, and I would thank you not to have raised tempers on her birthday."

William became thoughtful for a moment.

"She was born on the first of November, eh?"


"After that, they were a lot more involved in our family situation. Every Sunday we had to go up to Preston for their church meetings and tried to drill their education into my head. I preferred the distance, even though I adored Chastity. My father was the one who allowed me to learn how to use my dagger. His family's pressure was too constraining, they had something to say about all of our lives. And after my parents died, they would have left me in the care of my mother's brother, but he was killed in a street mugging outside one of his regular pubs. He did well in cards one night and we got it all because we were his only relatives. In the end, the only option I had, since I wasn't in my majority yet, was that I would have to stay with them."


Marianne watched from her seat beside her parents as a young man bid his farewells to her family.

"He would do well for you, Marianne. A very respectable young man." Eva said, sipping her tea.

The young woman, just turned fifteen, shook her head.


"They would have arranged my marriage behind my back, despite my protests and refusals. My parents were in full agreement that I should choose who I would marry, so blocked them at every turn. It didn't stop them from arranging a marriage and setting it for when I turned eighteen. The church they were involved in were very assiduous in their organising of the matter. They were the ones who picked out and arranged everything at their parish. I despised them all."


"No! I refuse! I refuse to marry such a horrid toad!" Marianne shouted, eyes blazing with determination.

William glanced at her from over the top of his book.

"This is not up for discussion, Marianne. You will do as you're told."

The girl, only turned sixteen, scrunched up her nose and stormed out of the room.

"We'll see about that…" she whispered.


"I decided very early on that I would never stay with them…"


She was laid out on an altar, covered with only a white cloth. Her wrists and ankles were bound with chains as she struggled and fought. Marianne's legs were pulled forcibly wide.

"No! You will never succeed! I refuse to allow this!"

Her shrieks and cries went ignored. Her parents were held back by the members of the parish.


"My family and their church organised the death of my parents so I could be brought under their thumb…"


"They don't deserve a burial. The Lord demands they rot for their sins." Eva commented.

William glanced at Henrietta.

"Inform the mortician that there's no need for anything. They are not worth his time," he told her with a stern expression on his face.

Marianne, who had been listening in through a crack in the door, saw the smirk on Henrietta's face when she turned her back on her father. It sickened her just how malicious and cruel her family was.


"My parents had made arrangements for this. The look they gave me before they left that day told me they knew they were going to die. When I started to carry out all of the schemes, I learned they were all prepared for the eventuality…"


Marianne smiled as she waved off the servants for the night. Her parents were fairly well-off, so were able to hire a small group of servants. There was a housekeeper, a couple of maids, a gardener, and a carriage driver they would hire when it was needed. She was sad in the knowledge that they wouldn't have work when the morning came…


"I set everything up…"


She poured flammable fluid onto the floors. It was going to be a slow burning fire. But once it got going, it would consume the whole house…


"I gathered up everything I could take with me…"


Marianne got together her and her parents' savings, and dressed in some clothes left behind by the gardener; brown trousers, beige shirt, dark brown coat and shoes, and a dark brown baker's hat. Her dagger was stuffed into her coat pocket as she made her way upstairs to her bedroom…


"One of our maids, a young, pretty thing, had died of consumption. I moved her from her bed to mine, tucked her in… She looked like she was just sleeping… Once everything was done, no one would recognise the difference…"


The maid was pale and cold as she lay to rest in Marianne's bed, tucked in the white covers. Marianne stood over her and pressed her lips to the dead girl's head.

"I shall be forever grateful for your service here tonight."


"I cut my hair, which used to hang straight down to my waist…"


With her hair cut as short as a boy's, Marianne placed the cut strands around the maid's head…


"And then I set the house on fire."


She watched from a hill not far from the house. The smoke and flames rose up to the sky and consumed the brick and mortar of the house. A single tear trailed down her cheek. Marianne turned away and begun the trek to London. A funeral parlour would be her first stop.


Marianne sighed and walked through the gravestones, knowing her story had come to an end. There was still one more stone to see, and it was one she held in particular regard when it came to her new life. Sebastian and Ciel followed her, coming to grips with what she had just told them. The boy now understood her concept of betrayal within families, if her grandparents and aunt could commit such atrocities against her, and helped in the murder of her parents. Sebastian however had witnessed the memories she had been reliving by going through her head via their blood bond. Everything she had experienced was intense and painful, and all he wanted to do was wrap his hands around the neck of the man her grandparents had attempted to arrange a marriage with. No one was allowed to touch what was his.

She glanced at them over her shoulder.

"There's a small mercy in it all if they ever found me. Eva and William are dead now, died within months of one another and are buried up in Preston. Henrietta's noble husband is buried up there too, and she gave up her mourning dress within a year of his death, and doted on Chastity, even though she resented my parents for having a child before her. She was always put second by her parents because my father was the firstborn and heir. That resentment only continued right up to the point of their deaths."

To think such a woman is related to my darling Marianne. I shall enjoy the day I can snap her neck. Sebastian thought.

"What about your cousin? Did she have any involvement in the murder?" Ciel inquired.

Marianne shook her head.

"No. I don't think so. Chastity never resented me, she only loved me like a sister. But having been conditioned all her life to be a devout follower, she doesn't know any better when it comes to real life. The only time I think she was ever jealous of me was when our grandparents and her aunt arranged the match between me and the man they wanted to bind me to. She believed herself in love with the façade he put up, and was heartbroken when she learned he was meant, and apparently wanted, to marry me. I hated the bastard."


They finally stopped in front of a small gravestone, which was barren save for a few shrivelled up plants.

"Marianne Lilly Blackmore." Sebastian read. "1869-1886. Beloved Daughter. May her pain triumph in death and her efforts be rewarded."

Marianne smiled.

"The maid's body is in this grave, and wears my name like a millstone around her neck. Her real one was Margaret Smith, Maggie as she preferred. She died young, but felt she did her duty to the end. I felt she deserved better than a peasant's grave, and that I could one day place her own name on the stone. It may be a while before that happens though."

She knelt before the gravestone and placed the rose down on the earth.

"Thank you, Maggie. Thanks to you, I have freedom. So I shall live long enough for the both of us."


Marianne and Ciel planned to leave now that their business was done. They began to make their way back to the carriage, but Sebastian lingered behind. Marianne walked up to his side and touched his arm.

"Sebastian? Are you ready to go?" she asked.

The demon looked down at her and smiled.

"I shall be up a few minutes. Please assist the Master into the carriage and I shall be there when you are ready to depart."

Marianne accepted his answer and hurried after Ciel.


Sebastian's business attained to returning to the gravestones of Mr and Mrs Blackmore. In a typical courtship, a suitor would ask the lady's parents for their permission and blessing, but since that wasn't an option, he could only inform them of his intentions and follow through with his plans.

"Sir, Madam, I am not sure if Marianne has told you of her life since faking her demise, but I am Sebastian Michaelis, head butler to the Phantomhive family. You may have been aware of the mark on her body, and were concerned by its nature, but I can swear that being a demon's mate ensures her protection from every soul who wishes her harm. I shall defend her with my very life, and shall earn her love and hand as your human men would. My… affection for her grows constantly, and we have recently become bound by blood, the first step for her to completely become a demon's mate," he explained softly. "I shall endeavour to earn your favour, if you are indeed watching over your daughter."

He swept away with a billow of his black coat. His hands rested at his sides as his eyes flickered between red and magenta, his tongue rolled over his sharp canine teeth as a smirk spread across his face.

We are bound by blood, so the next step shall be undertaken. I shall make her forever mine.

He caught sight of Marianne standing beside the carriage, and smiled.


This is a little interlude before we head off to Houndsworth. I thought you all deserved a bit more of an understanding to Marianne's upbringing and to get a few answers about her past. There is still a lot more things that need to be revealed though, so I hope you all stay along for the ride.

Should you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Please read and review!