Who: Chiara di Palermo What: Reconnaissance (a narrative) When: Thursday night, July 26th ,1888 (slightly backdated) Where: Outside Lord Henry Mountbatten the Third's manor. Rating: Low Warnings: None.
The information gleaned at the party was all very well and good, but it wasn't enough. There were too many variables, too many moving pieces, and this was far too important to leave even the slightest detail to chance.
It had been a while since Chiara had ventured out alone. Few people knew about her very humble beginnings on the street, pickpocketing for a crust. She had come a long way from those days, but somewhere deep inside her, the young, hungry little street rat still existed. She was dormant most of the time, but every so often, like tonight, she resurfaced like an itch begging to be scratched.
In the ordinary way of things Chiara would have send a fidata to do this night's work, or even a sorellina. It was important, but she wouldn't perish if she didn't have the information tonight. It might have been even more sensible to wait, and approach the issue as she had before - attending a gathering with Gabriel on her arm as legitimizer.
Tonight, the itch had resurfaced, and she was going to take matters into her own hand.
She shed her fashionable dress, her corset, her gloves, until she stood in nothing but her chemise and drawers. Then she pulled some garments out of a rarely used closet. A pair of man's trousers, black, and tight. A black man's shirt. A black waistcoat. Black tails. Her hair, she quickly fixed in a very high bun - high enough to sit neatly under a top hat.
Without the corset pushing her breasts up, they were much less noticeable, and with a little boot polish mustache darkening her lip, she looked, from a distance if nothing else, like a fairly respectable gentleman.
It would not do to let the girls see her this way, so she used as much discretion as she could muster as she crept down the steps and out into the night.
Lord Henry Mountbatten the Third's manor was some miles away but her shoes, unpolished and the soles muted by velvet, ate up the distance. She chose not to breathe, and between that and her doctored shoes, she made no discernible sound. She silently scaled the gates with a single bound, landing catlike in Mountbatten's garden and stealing around the side of the house.
His office, she had gleaned from her time at the party, was on the second floor, above the front entrance. She smirked to herself. Could he have made this any easier for her? She easily climbed the side of the house, and perched herself on top of the canopy. Then she stood and tried the window. It wasn't even latched!
Her time here must by necessity be short. She restricted herself therefore to searching the top of the desk - until she found nothing there. Nothing, except...
Her enhanced senses caught sight of the indentations on the blotter. Quick as a flash she pulled another piece of paper from the stack in his tray, laid it over the blotter, and plucked a pencil from the holder. She rubbed it carefully over the paper, watching in unrestrained glee as the words formed. They were few, but they were powerful.
Catching the barest hint of a noise from downstairs, she froze. She had outstayed her (lack of) welcome. She prepared to let herself out the way she had come, first rubbing her fingerprints from any surface she may have touched with the soft suede cloth she pulled from her waistcoat pocket.
"I say, you there! What is the meaning of this!?" came from behind her as the door was opened just before she could get away. She hissed, turning her face from the light, and leaped out through the open window, landing gracefully on the ground in a crouch before running for the fence. That, she leaped over, and made her way down the street as quickly as she knew how.
"I say sir! Stop right there!" But she was already gone.