‘You married him?’ Allie croaked. ‘Are you Nathaniel’s mother?’
Looking supremely unruffled, Lucinda handed her a tissue. ‘Oh no. Their father, my ex-husband, had several wives – not all at the same time, of course. He never could settle down. I was his first wife. After we divorced, he married Nathaniel’s mother, who sadly died in a riding accident while still in her twenties. He then married Isabelle’s mother.’
Allie blinked. ‘Blimey, he must have been good looking to have so many women chasing him. Who was this guy?’
‘“This guy”, as you describe him, was Alistair St. John. He was a Scottish government leader and the owner of ILC, the biggest technology company in Britain,’ Lucinda said. She took a prim sip of tea. ‘He was very charming.’
‘Wait,’ Allie said. ‘Is he… was this St. John guy my grandfather?’
Lucinda rested her hand on Allie’s arm. ‘Oh no, darling.’
‘Then who…’ Allie held up her hands in frustration at the confusing maze of old people’s love lives.
‘Your grandfather was a lovely man – a good man – named Thomas Meldrum,’ Lucinda said simply. ‘He was my second husband. He was much older than me; he died before you were born.’
She said no more about it, but her face settled, suddenly, into well-used lines of sorrow.
In the awkward pause that followed, Allie scrambled for something to say to change the subject. ‘So, was Mr –’ she tried to remember the first husband’s name ‘– St. John important in Orion or Night School, or whatever?’
‘Of course,’ Lucinda said, as if the alternative were unthinkable.
‘What happened after he died? Like, to Nathaniel and Isabelle.’
‘Alistair and I were always close,’ Lucinda continued. ‘He made me godmother to both his children. Isabelle’s mother was still alive – is still alive now, in fact – so she lived with her. But for Nathaniel, there was no one but me.’
‘What was he… like?’ Allie asked curiously.
‘Difficult,’ Lucinda said. ‘I was often away on business. Nathaniel and Isabelle were both attending Cimmeria at that time, it was his last year. Then when the will was read…’ She shook her head.
This sounded familiar to Allie. She thought Isabelle had mentioned something about an inheritance long ago. ‘What happened? What did the will say?’
Lucinda set the teacup down carefully on the delicate, white saucer. ‘Alistair had left everything to Isabelle. The youngest child. The daughter. Not to his eldest son. It was a shocking decision and Nathaniel took it to mean his father never really loved him. Of course his father had provided for him, a large portion of all the income from the companies and investments goes to Nathaniel to this day, but that was meaningless to him. What mattered was his father didn’t trust him with the family fortune. He trusted Isabelle.’
Allie let her breath out in a low rush. ‘Why did he do that? I mean, leave it all to Isabelle?’
‘Alastair was a businessman to his very core.’ Lucinda’s gaze was shrewd. ‘He had devoted his life to his work. I know he saw weaknesses in Nathaniel’s character – in his mind – that concerned him deeply. I’m quite certain it was purely a business decision.’
‘Is that why Nathaniel hates her now?’ Allie asked. ‘Why he’s doing all of this? Because of their dad’s will?’
‘I believe so,’ Lucinda said. ‘Or at least, that’s at the root of it. I haven’t helped, of course. With my decisions as head of Orion I insured he can never inherit that either, so he hates us all.’
For a long moment Allie sat still. The longer Lucinda talked, the more pieces of her life fell into place. It was like a complicated jigsaw puzzle in which you suddenly recognised the sky.
But there were still many empty spaces.
‘You said on the phone that the police are on his side, that he meets with government ministers. I still don’t understand, I guess, how he can do that,’ Allie said.
‘Ah, now. This is an indication of how clever – how thorough – Nathaniel is,’ Lucinda said. ‘After attending Oxford he came to work for me. He seemed to have calmed down – to have accepted his situation. I had hope for him again. He started as a clerk, but he was terribly good at his job. Very trustworthy.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘He progressed quickly. Eventually I made him my deputy. He was in charge of day-to-day operations of my offices and of my work with Orion. He represented me when I was away on business, which was often. This meant he got to know the Orion board personally, and they socialised with him. To my eternal sorrow he spent that time gathering information he could use against me. Finding out who was dissatisfied, who wanted more, learning what people didn’t like about my leadership, what changes they would like to see. Planting seeds of unhappiness among them. After a few years, he had all the information he needed to begin to undermine me. To try to destroy me.’
She leaned her chin lightly on to her hand, troubled grey eyes looking out across the room. ‘One day, about six years ago, I came back from a business trip in Russia and he was gone. He’d ransacked my office safe for critical documents, and disappeared.’ Her eyes met Allie’s again. ‘That was the beginning.’
Something in her tone made goosebumps rise on Allie’s arms. ‘The beginning?’
Lucinda gestured at the room around them. ‘The beginning of his battle for Orion, for Cimmeria, for you… for everything.’
‘He planned it that long ago?’ Allie was incredulous. ‘But I would have been… what? Just ten years old.’
‘I think he started planning the moment the lawyers read out his father’s will,’ Lucinda said. ‘This is his revenge against a long-dead man.’
The temperature in the room seemed to drop; Allie rubbed her arms as she thought it all through. The story Lucinda told was so sad – so hopeless. ‘After he disappeared – you never found him? You can find anyone.’
‘Oh, I found him,’ Lucinda said. ‘Or rather Raj Patel found him. Within a month or two, I had a good idea of where Nathaniel was living, but… what could I do? I had no hold over him. No crime to charge him with. Everything he’d taken I’d have given to him if he asked for it. And he was like a son to me. I just… wanted to talk to him. To tell him how much I cared about him. That I forgave him. But he refused.’ She rubbed her eyes, tiredly. ‘When I heard about his plotting – forming allegiances with members of the board against me – I thought it was a pathetic sign of his desperation. And then…’ Her face saddened. ‘Then Christopher went missing.’
Allie’s mouth went dry. ‘So he’d just been…’
‘Waiting,’ Lucinda said. ‘Watching and waiting for Christopher to be old enough. He knew it would break my heart – my “fake” son, as he saw it, taking my real grandson away from me. Further poisoning my relationship with your mother. He knew it would cause untold damage. That’s why he did it. In its own way it was a brilliant move. And now…’ Her gaze met Allie’s. ‘Well, you’re the missing piece in his puzzle. The last remaining member of my family. The final piece on his chessboard. He wants you on his side, too. Then –’ she held up her expressive hands – ‘checkmate.’
Reaching across the desk, she held out a hand to Allie, who hesitantly placed her own hand in it. Lucinda’s grip was strong. ‘There was no way for him to know that instead of driving us apart, he would bring us closer together. That I would do everything I could to protect you from him. And that we would fight back.’
Warm with pride, Allie squeezed her grandmother’s hand. But when she spoke, her words were cautious.
‘You said we’re in trouble – that we’re trapped. Do you really think we can win?’