‘I instituted a voting system – so now the board votes on all our actions. And I lobbied to let children from different backgrounds into Cimmeria,’ Lucinda explained. ‘As you know, entrance to the organisation starts at school level. Night School is the main youth group, but there are similar groups at a few other top public schools. Until I came along, entrance was by heredity – if your family were members you were accepted. I changed that… as much as I could. Now some students – fewer than I’d like – are admitted based on ability and intellect. Fresh blood, they call it.’
Allie thought of Carter, the orphaned son of a kitchen worker and a mechanic. It made sense now, that he was in Night School.
‘OK…’ she said. ‘But what exactly does… Orion… do?’
Lucinda considered this for a moment before answering. ‘It makes sure certain things are run properly.’
‘What… things?’
‘The government,’ Lucinda said. ‘The banks. Major corporations. The media. The courts.’
This didn’t seem possible. ‘Doesn’t the government run the government?’ Allie asked.
‘Of course,’ Lucinda said mildly. ‘We just help them.’
‘Help them how?’
‘By making certain the right people are elected. People who are members of Orion. People who understand what we’re doing.’ Lucinda cocked her head to one side. ‘Does that make sense?’
‘No.’ Allie didn’t like the sound of this. ‘Are you saying when people go and vote their votes aren’t real?’
‘Oh no. Their votes are very real,’ Lucinda assured her. ‘But the people they’re voting for are part of Orion.’
A moment of stunned disbelief followed.
‘All of them?’ Allie’s voice was small.
‘Certainly not,’ Lucinda said. ‘Just… enough of them.’
‘And the judges?’ Allie said faintly. ‘Them too?’
‘Absolutely,’ Lucinda said. ‘The court system is very important. Particularly the Supreme Court. Actually, we do run that one completely. It’s… necessary.’
A long pause followed as Allie digested this. The normal sounds of everyday life around her suddenly seemed out of place – the kettle in the corner ticking as it cooled; laughter floating in through the walls. As if a secret organisation were not running everything around them.
‘So Orion controls… everything.’
‘It doesn’t completely control,’ Lucinda said. ‘But effectively. Yes. I suppose that’s fair.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a long story.’ Lucinda poured more tea into her cup. ‘You see, Orion is a very old organisation. It dates back more than two centuries to a time when the crown had lost most of its power and Parliament’s strength was growing but still unsteady. After the revolutions in France and America, the noble families feared a revolution would happen here. The king was too weak to control his government, much less his country. So a group of the country’s most powerful land owners and parliamentarians joined together to ensure the government was run well. They called themselves the Orion Society.’
‘Orion…’ Allie said with a thoughtful frown. ‘Like the stars?’
‘Orion the hunter,’ Lucinda said. ‘In Greek mythology, he was a god. The founders chose to name their group after him because he could walk on water. Hubris if you ask me, but –’ she held up her hands – ‘it’s only a name.’
‘So… what did they do?’ Allie prodded her.
‘They took over the reins of power. They helped each other. Made sure they became prime minister, chancellor, regent – whatever was needed to make sure power was held smoothly, transferred without interruption. Controlled.’
‘And nobody knew they existed?’ Allie’s tone was dubious. ‘How is that possible?’
‘We are very good,’ Lucinda said, ‘at keeping secrets.’
‘How did you end up in charge of everything?’ Allie said. ‘And your dad? How did he?’
‘It’s very simple: we inherited it. The leadership passes from one family to the next in order. Each family acts as chair for three years and then passes it on. Or, at least, that’s how it worked until I came along. My great-great-great-great grandfather was one of the founders. The Earl of Lanarkshire.’ Her piercing gaze held Allie’s. ‘That’s who we are, you know. Technically, I am Lady Lanarkshire. So is your mother. And so are you.’
Allie gaped at her. ‘I’m a… Lady?’
For the first time that afternoon, Lucinda truly smiled. She had even, white teeth, and her eyes crinkled warmly. ‘Yes, you are.’
‘But you’re a baroness,’ Allie said accusingly. ‘I heard your guards call you that the night of the winter ball.’
‘I choose to use that title, rather than Lady,’ Lucinda said. ‘You see, I earned that one.’
Bloody hell, I’m a Lady. Lady Allie Lanarkshire Sheridan Something… Allie thought dizzily. That is so messed up. Wait until Rachel finds out.
‘You said the leadership used to just go from one to another of the families in Orion,’ Allie said. ‘It doesn’t any more?’
Lucinda’s smile disappeared. ‘No. I changed that. I thought the leader should be voted in. Some of our members are idiots and I couldn’t bear the idea of them making decisions about the future of the country simply because of who their parents were. It was an archaic system. One of my first acts as leader was to change the original charter. We all agreed. Now the chair is elected. I’ve been re-elected three times.’ She made a wry face. ‘I’d be rather surprised to be elected again under the circumstances.’
A sudden realisation struck Allie with almost physical force. ‘That’s what Nathaniel’s so angry about, isn’t it? You changed the rules. My brother Christopher said something about you throwing away our inheritance. That’s what he meant, isn’t it?’
‘Precisely so,’ Lucinda said. ‘He would automatically have taken over after me, as your mother would have refused, and he is her eldest child. Had I not changed the rules, all of this would have been his.’
‘But he can’t care that much,’ Allie said. ‘I mean, I don’t care. And I don’t get to do it either. Why would Christopher care so much?’
‘Christopher probably wouldn’t have cared at all, Allie, were it not for Nathaniel.’ Lucinda leaned forward, her face very serious now. ‘You see – despite everything you’ve personally experienced, Nathaniel is very charismatic. Very charming. Very convincing. And a fragile young man like Christopher, searching for a path to follow in life, is easily seduced. Nathaniel showed him how your mother deceived him about his own history. Convinced him he couldn’t trust his own family. Promised him a life of power and privilege. It is the traditional method – he broke him down. And then he built him up again. In his own image.’
As she spoke, Allie’s blood seemed to chill in her veins. Could her grandmother be right? It would explain so much. Christopher’s strange behaviour when she’d seen him last December. The way he’d seemed like a strange, angrier version of himself.
Remembering that day, the two of them standing on opposite sides of the running water, she felt colder. She tried to focus on asking more questions.
‘Why does Nathaniel hate you and Isabelle so much?’ Allie asked. ‘What happened? Is he just crazy?’
‘I’ve known Nathaniel since he was very young,’ Lucinda said. ‘I knew his father. We were… very close. Sadly, he died when Nathaniel was still a teenager. In those days, he was a frightened, lonely young man, who’d lost his mother when he was a child, and then his father died, too. All he had was his half-sister…’
‘Isabelle.’ Allie finished the thought for her.
‘Exactly.’
Allie picked up her cup. ‘So Isabelle and Nathaniel – they have the same father?’
Lucinda nodded.
‘And you knew their father well…’ Allie said. ‘How did you know him? Did you work with him?’
‘Not exactly.’ Lucinda’s smile was wry. ‘I married him.’
/> Allie, who had just taken a mouthful of tea, choked on it. Sputtering, she set the cup and saucer down and leaned forward trying to get her breath.
‘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?’
‘We have no choice, Allie.’ The look in Lucinda’s eyes startled her. All the warmth was gone; her gaze was utterly ruthless. ‘Because he’s coming for you.’
TWENTY-NINE
W<
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hen Allie finally stumbled out of Isabelle’s office, her head reeled from the information. In the end, they’d talked for more than an hour, mostly about Nathaniel and Christopher, but sometimes Lucinda revealed fascinating snippets about her life and work.
They’d been talking about a meeting Lucinda had once had with the prime minister of Japan when Isabelle tapped on the door.
‘I just wanted to remind you that you’ve a meeting in five minutes with Raj,’ she told Lucinda apologetically.
Taking her cue, Allie had stood. ‘I should go.’
Lucinda walked around the desk to stand in front of her. With a gentle touch, she tucked strands of Allie’s wavy hair behind her ears. It was such an unconsciously maternal gesture it made Allie’s heart ache.