Ring. Sister. Piano (Book 4 of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Eight: The Exception

Her Grace Magdalena Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville – or Magda, as she was still occasionally known – loved riding. She had done even in the old days in New Hampshire, but it was especially lovely now, because her horse never snorted at her humble origins, or gawped at her as though trying to unravel the mystery of how a girl with no family or fortune had managed to ensnare the most eligible bachelor in Britain. 

Of course, Magda could charm away those looks with five minutes' conversation. The gawpers always walked away thinking, "Oh, that's why – she's delightful." But it was still nice, for a few hours a day, to be with a creature who accepted her without question.

She'd been quite far today – all the way to Woodstock and back – in her exquisitely tailored riding habit, with a small top hat and veil perched artfully on her head. It was lucky she was well-dressed – not that she was ever otherwise – because there would be no time to change, now that she was back at the house. She had to speak to the housekeeper about the arrangements for dinner. There would be fifteen guests instead of fourteen, because the Bishop of Oxford wanted to bring one of his 'protégés'. And though rumours abounded about these young men, it simply wouldn't do to upset a Bishop.

She was just breezing through the hall, unpinning her hat, when the butler approached, bearing a card on a silver tray. Magda picked up the card without breaking her stride, and then skidded to a halt when she read it.

"In person?" she asked the butler.

"Yes, your grace."

"He didn't say what he wanted, did he?"

"The pleasure of your company, your grace. Shall I tell him you're engaged?"

She looked at the card again. It was hand-written – no, hastily scrawled – because, of course, the man who had killed the Lieutenant-governor of Lucknow with a fork wouldn't keep such things as visiting cards about his person. 

Sir Jack Cade. The 'Sir' was squashed up against the 'Jack', as though it had been added as an afterthought, perhaps on the basis that a Duchess would be more likely to receive a knight. But he needn't have worried. Magda was extremely anxious to see him. It would interest her friends no end to hear that she had taken tea with Jack Cade. 

Of course, there would be some – the Chancellor of the University, the Bishop of Oxford and his wife – who would shudder to think they'd set foot in the same house as a lawless new-breed, but Magda wasn't interested in them. She was interested in the new set – mostly young people, all of them under the spell of Lady Wilde's brilliant son – who thought that life should be beautiful and interesting. They would love to hear tales of rebel new-breed Generals and Indian decadence.

"No," she said at last. "Show him into the morning room, will you, Travers? And send up some tea. I'll be there directly."

The morning room was Magda's favourite. It was where she wrote her letters and received her closest friends. She had overseen the decoration herself. There was no chintz or gilt or red velvet. Better still, there were no stuffed animal heads, which marred the rest of the house with their glassy eyes and curiously invasive smell. 

Magda found those heads especially troubling, because she had seen animals like that as a child – real, living eyes pricking through the mist that cloaked them – on the green mountains of her home. In England, the only stags she had seen were consigned to special parks or other people's drawing-rooms. Everything here was either tame or dead. She didn't allow this observation to bother her, in the ordinary course of events, but sometimes it got through her bustling energy and made her listless.

At any rate, the morning room was her own. Its couches and carpets were a simple duck-egg blue, its desks were polished walnut-wood, and its windows were thrown open to keep the smell of death at bay. Jack Cade was standing awkwardly in the middle of it when she entered, and the door had barely closed behind her when she realized her mistake.