They had all known /where/ to write to him, much of the need for secrecy having been lifted with Laura's death. Duncan had felt obliged to inform a number of people about that unhappy event.

It made little sense to Duncan that his grandfather would decide to cut him off just when a measure of respectability had been restored to his life. It made even less sense when he considered the fact that as the Marquess of Claverbrook's only grandson and only direct descendant, he was his heir.

But sense or nonsense, he was cut off, turned loose and penniless, with no means of supporting those who were dependent upon him – or himself for that matter. Not that he worried unduly about the Harrises. Good servants were always in demand. Or about himself. He was still young and able-bodied. But he /did/ worry about Toby. How could he not?

Hence this desperate dash to London, which was perhaps the last place on earth he wanted to be – and in the middle of the Season, to boot. It had seemed the only course of action open to him. The letter he had written in reply to his grandfather's had been ignored, and already precious time had been lost. So he had been forced to come to demand an explanation in person. Or to /ask/ for it, anyway. One did not demand anything of the Marquess of Claverbrook, who had never been known for the sweetness of his temper.

Duncan's mother did not have any reassurance to offer. She had not even known he had been cut off until he told her so. "I only wonder," she said when he went to her boudoir the morning after his arrival – or the early afternoon to be more precise, since mornings did not figure largely in her favorite times of the day – "that he did not cut you off five years ago, my love, if he was going to do it at all. We all /expected/ that he would then. I was even toying with the idea of going to plead with him /not/ to, but it struck me that by doing so I would quite possibly goad him into cutting you off even sooner than he planned. Perhaps he forgot until recently that you were still drawing on the rents of Woodbine. Not so harshly, Hetty – you will pull out every hair on my head and whatever will I do then?" Her maid was vigorously brushing the tangles out of her hair.