"I can see, Mr. Cardeau," said Ciel Phantomhive coldly, "that we are getting absolutely nowhere."

Across the desk in the Earl's study, Garance Cardeau gritted his teeth. Beside him, his translator looked at Ciel apologetically.

"Monsieur is unused to having terms refused," she explained apologetically in her soft and heavily accented voice. "Perhaps we can negotiate further?"

"We have negotiated for nearly two hours. Your terms are unreasonable." Ciel leaned back in his chair. "I will not sell you my Cheapside factory."

The translator related this in French to Cardeau, who scowled and muttered, "Alors, dis au gamin que cette réuni on est finie (then tell the kid this meeting is over)."

"Monsieur understands your position," whispered the translator. "He regrets that the sale cannot take place, and wishes you good day."

Ciel's lips twitched slightly. "Very well. My man Sebastian will show you to the door."

"Quel cochon odieux (what an obnoxious pig)," Cordeau spat out the corner of his mouth to his translator, who lowered her eyes as Ciel rang for Sebastian.

After the pair had left, Sebastian brought his master to the dining room for lunch. "My lord, may I ask what is so amusing?"

Ciel smirked. "That idiot Cardeau clearly doesn't realize that I speak French, and subsequently that I understand each of his pedantic insults."

"So then why the translator?"

"It amuses me. Besides, one tends to be more honest when he thinks he cannot be heard. I learn a lot this way."

Sebastian conceded the point with a nod of his head, then began to serve the meal. Ciel ate his Boeuf Charlemagne in silence, had to be coaxed to finish his cauliflower, criticized the onion soup as being 'not salty enough', and ate two pieces of almond fudge gateau and would have had a third had his butler not intervened and gently suggested that he might make himself ill, and that he could have more at dinner if he wanted.

"I don't need to have it twice in one day," Ciel snapped as he reluctantly put down his fork. "I want something else for dinner."

"Of course, my lord."

After lunch, Ciel had a drawing lesson out in the garden and a music lesson in one of the smaller ballrooms, where the acoustics were excellent. He somewhat enjoyed playing his violin, but he didn't like singing almost at all, in that his voice routinely cracked if he went too high. One particularly humiliating incident had occurred when his music tutor, Baroness d'Lieszch, had him singing Mozart's 'Confutatis' and, sixteen seconds into the song, a frantic Mey-Rin came dashing headlong into the room to breathlessly ask whether the chandelier was falling down.

Thankfully, the Baroness had him playing 'Confutatis' instead of singing it today. She accompanied him on the grand piano- "Once more time, Earl, with feeling!"- and then gave him several fingering and bowing exercises, in where he was able to earn a bit of rare praise from the normally strict tutor.

When classes were over, and Ciel had made an impressive end to the day's mountain of paperwork, Sebastian served him dinner (with the almond fudge gateau conspicuously absent; the butler had opted for sugared violet pudding instead) and then offered the earl a game of chess afterward. Ciel agreed readily, if only to stall the walk he knew Sebastian wanted him to take that evening.

"And we'll have a stroll after the game," Sebastian added, and Ciel snorted.