In Unveiled, we find out that Turner Senior’s mill was burned down and that Mrs. Turner gave everything away after his death, but even a wealthy mill-owner seems a long way removed from a duke’s son a few generations back. So what happened in those intervening generations? Here is a handy-dandy chart of all the intervening generations, and a brief description of the bad blood between the Turners and the Dalrymples.

You might wonder: Why did I come up with all this? Answer: Because I knew that Ash had to be in the line of succession, and that the families had to have some kind of persistent strife between them to justify the animosity. But I also knew that I didn’t want Ash and Margaret to have the same last name, because even though they are (very distantly) related, I didn’t want to have that continual reminder that they were related. So I also needed a really good story as to why one branch of the family had changed their last name.

In the beginning (lo, many generations ago) there were two brothers: John Dalrymple, the Duke of Parford, and his younger brother George. George, as the second son, was expected to marry into money. So he did—he got engaged to a merchant’s daughter.

As their wedding grew nearer, George realized that his brother expected him to help support the estate—while he was simultaneously casting aspersions on the woman who was bringing the money.

George and his brother got in a huge fight, and eventually George said that he was never going to have anything to do with his brother’s side of the family again. He took his wife’s name and her money and lived happily ever after, the end.

(Okay, it wasn’t the end.)

The Dalrymple/Turner family was not quite done yet. Several generations later, their grandchildren met. Lily Dalrymple was 15 when she met George Turner (the grandson of the first George), who was…27. George, being a persuasive fellow, managed to convince her to marry him, and since the family obviously didn't consent…

Needless to say, the Dalrymples did not look kindly on their elopement. Lily’s elder brother challenged George Turner to a duel, and killed him, and then they brought their sister home where she gave birth to a daughter. Shortly thereafter, the elder Turners died with an extremely ambiguous will. There followed a massive, multi-generational grudge-induced fight in Chancery over who would inherit what—the Dalrymples claiming that Lily’s daughter, as the eldest son’s daughter, should inherit everything, and the Turners claiming that having killed George, the Dalrymples shouldn’t be entitled to anything.

The Dalrymples ended up getting a handful of the properties that had once belonged to the Turners, the fight eroded much of the property, and the Dalrymple/Turner dispute was thus set in stone.