He /knew/ why, of course, as his opening words revealed. "Give me one good reason," he said, his bushy white eyebrows almost meeting over the bridge of his nose, a sharply defined frown line between his brows the only feature that revealed where one ended and the other began, "just /one/, Sheringford, why I should continue to fund your excesses and debaucheries." He held a silver-headed wooden cane in both gnarled hands and thumped it on the floor between his feet to give emphasis to his displeasure.

There was one perfectly good reason – even apart from the fact that really there had not been a great many of either excesses or debaucheries. But his grandfather knew nothing about Toby and never would, if Duncan had any say in the matter. Nor would anyone else. "Because I am your only grandson, sir?" Duncan suggested. And lest that not be sufficient reason, as doubtless it was not, "And because I plan to live respectably for the rest of my life now that Laura is dead?" She had been dead for four months. She had taken a winter chill and just faded away – because, in Duncan's opinion, she had lost the will to live.

His grandfather's frown deepened, if that were possible, and he thumped the cane again. "You dare mention /that name/ in my hearing?" he asked rhetorically. "Mrs. Turner was dead to the world five years ago, Sheringford, when she chose to commit the unspeakable atrocity of running off with you, leaving her lawful husband behind." It had happened on Duncan's twenty-fifth birthday – and, more to the point, on his wedding day. He had abandoned his bride, virtually at the altar, and run away with her sister-in-law, her brother's wife. Laura.

The whole thing had been one of the most spectacular scandals London had seen in years, perhaps ever. At least, he assumed it had. He had not been here to experience it in person.

He said nothing since this was hardly the time or the place for a discussion on the meaning of the word /atrocity/.