Married In A Moment

CHAPTER ONE

ELLENA stared at the television screen in stunned horror, her brain numbed by what the newscaster had just announced—an avalanche in the Austrian Alps. An avalanche in the very area where Justine was spending a ski-ing holiday with her boyfriend Kit!

Ellena didn’t seem able to think as the newscaster carried on solemnly about tons of snow, rocks and boulders, and no chance of anyone surviving such circumstance! Having done with that piece of news, he went on to the next item.

Though still disbelieving, she was starting to recover sufficiently from her initial shock to tell herself that she was panicking unnecessarily. Only that morning she had received an ‘our hotel’-type of picture postcard from her sister... But—that must have been posted days ago!

Hurriedly Ellena found the card, feverishly scanning it and looking to see if by any chance there was a printed hotel telephone number. There was! In next to no time she was busy dialling. If she could just speak to Justine...

The line was engaged. For a half-hour the line was engaged. Ellena accepted that she was not the only anxious relative wanting to get through, though the waiting was unsustainable.

Perhaps Justine was trying to get through to her. She would know that Ellena would be anxious. She put her phone down. It did not ring.

All lines were probably swamped anyway. Perhaps Kit had managed to get through to his family. He had two brothers; the middle one, Russell, and his wife, Pamela, were looking after their baby while Justine and Kit were away.

Ellena was enormously thankful that she’d insisted on having Russell’s address in Hertfordshire and phone number before Justine left. Ellena had never met any of Kit’s family, but—interfering though it might be, or perhaps because she was so used to looking out for Justine—she had already phoned once to see if baby Violette was settled without her mother. Pamela, Russell’s wife, had been more than a shade frosty, she recalled. But Ellena cared not for Pamela Langford’s frostiness just now and, finding the number, she dialled.

‘Hello. Russell. Ellena Spencer—J-Justine’s sister.’ Striving to keep calm, she announced herself—and hesitated, suddenly realising that if he had not had a telephone call from Kit, nor had he been watching the news, she was going to have to break the news to him herself.

But, ‘Bad do,’ he replied, and she knew that he was aware of the avalanche.

‘You haven’t heard anything from Kit? He hasn’t phoned or anything?’ she questioned urgently.

‘We had a card from him this morning, but that’s all.’

‘Oh,’ Ellena cried faintly, starting to feel a shade frantic. ‘I’ve tried to phone the hotel, but I can’t get through.’

‘Try not to worry. Pamela says you’ll hear soon enough if Kit and your sister are involved.’ Russell attempted to soothe her, and she wondered how they could be so passive. Not worry...! ‘According to the news report we were watching, that area was out of bounds—there shouldn’t have been anyone in that area.’

Oh, heavens! Ellena was two years older than Justine and had done her best to take care of her when their parents had been killed in a mountaineering accident five years ago. Ellena knew from experience that anything labelled ‘out of bounds’ was a magnet for Justine. There shouldn’t have been anyone in the avalanche area! When had that ever stopped Justine?

‘I think I’ll keep trying to get through to the hotel,’ she stated, starting to feel torn. If she went to her office and sent a fax there’d be no one at her flat to take any incoming call. ‘If Kit rings you, would you...?’

‘Look, if you’re seriously worried, why not ring Gideon? He’ll know how to get through.’

Gideon Langford was the eldest of the three brothers. By all accounts he was successful in everything he did, a high-flyer making the engineering firm started by his father into the vast empire it was today. Popular with the opposite sex—but light on his toes, apparently, when it came to marriage talk.

All the same, it defeated her to know how he could get through to the hotel if she couldn’t. But she was beginning to feel quite desperate. Desperate enough to try anything. ‘Have you got his number?’ she asked.

Ellena tried the hotel again first, but when she again couldn’t get through she dialled the number Russell had given her. It was engaged, as it was on her second and third attempt. On her fourth attempt, however, it rang out, and was answered.

‘Langford!’ an all-male voice answered abruptly. So abruptly, Ellena just knew that her call was most unwelcome.

‘I’m sorry to bother you—’ then no more formality; she was almost past caring whom she bothered ‘—my name’s Ellena Spencer—I’m Justine’s sister.’

‘Justine?’ he demanded clarification.

‘Justine and Kit, your brother,’ she inserted, too het up to feel foolish, because he’d know Kit was his brother, for goodness’ sake! ‘They’re on a ski-ing holiday together and—’

‘You’ve heard the news?’ Gideon cut in tersely, clearly a man who had little time to waste.

‘About the avalanche. Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to get through to the hotel, but—’

‘They’re missing!’ he stated shortly.

‘Missing?’ she gasped. How Gideon Langford had come by that information totally irrelevant as she clutched hard onto the phone receiver.

‘My brother and his companion left their hotel first thing this morning—they haven’t been seen since.’

‘Oh, no!’ she whispered, tears springing to her eyes. ‘They might have gone anywhere,’ she choked, clutching at straws. ‘Russell said that the area of the avalanche was out of bounds.’

Gideon Langford took in that she had been in touch with his other brother without commenting on it. ‘Did he also tell you Kit would merely see that as another rule to be broken?’ he snarled harshly.

‘J-Justine and Kit are—well met,’ Ellena answered, her voice starting to fracture, the realisation hitting her that Gideon Langford’s harshness might stem from the fact he was keeping a lid on his own emotions about his youngest brother. ‘Is that all you know?’ she questioned.

‘I’ll find out more when I get there.’

‘You’re going to Austria to—?’

‘I’ll have a plane standing by in a couple of hours,’ he butted in grimly. Then he paused for a moment and, still in the same grim tone, asked, ‘Do you want to come?’ He didn’t sound very enthusiastic.

‘Yes,’ she answered without hesitation—it didn’t require any thinking about.

‘Where are you?’

‘My flat near Croydon.’

‘Your address?’ he demanded, barely before she had finished speaking. She gave it to him. ‘I’ll send a car. Be ready in an hour,’ he instructed, and rang off.

An hour ago she’d been watching the television. Now she was on her way to Austria! At any other time she might have taken exception to Gideon Langford’s bossiness. But not now. At this moment she was only grateful that he was taking charge. She felt a desperate need to be near Justine. Anything was better than sitting at home worrying.

As instructed, she was ready an hour later when a chauffeur-driven limousine arrived to take her to the airport.

And it was at the airport, in a private waiting area, that she caught her first glimpse of the man who ran that mammoth concern, Langford Engineering—Kit’s brother! Gideon Langford was tall, about ten years older than Kit, well over six feet, dark-haired and, as they shook hands, she felt pinned by a direct look from his unwavering slate-grey eyes.

She felt herself being checked over, starting with her straight blonde hair, now held back in a neat chignon. Then his eyes took in her creamy skin, her slightly hollowed cheeks and photogenic high cheekbones that sometimes caused her to seem aloof. She wasn’t particularly aloof, she didn’t think. It was just that she usually had some problem on her mind—most often something to do with Justine.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard any further news?’ she enquired, as he let go of her hand.

He shook his head. ‘We’ll just keep hoping,’ he said shortly, and that was about the sum total of their conversation until someone came to show them to the private jet.

They had little to say to each other throughout the journey, either. While she knew Gideon Langford was busy with his own thoughts, Ellena lapsed into thinking of her years with Justine since their parents’ deaths. They had been killed on a mountainside—she couldn’t bear it if Justine, too, perished... No, no, she wouldn’t think that way; she just wouldn’t.

She had been just seventeen; Justine fifteen—and on the point of being expelled from school for some misdemeanour. Which of her misdemeanours it had been exactly was lost under the weight of all the others when word had reached them of their parents’ accident.

They had both been much loved by their lively, bubbly parents, but Ellena had had to do some instant growing up. Prior to the accident, she had been hopeful that her father, as he had before, might have been able to persuade Justine’s school from taking such drastic action as expulsion. But, he didn’t come back and, while they were both devastated at losing their parents, it was Justine who had adored her father—he who, it had to be said, had indulged her endlessly and had refused to see anything wrong in a few high spirits and who had been inconsolable for months.

During this time Ellena had realised that her plans to go to university to study accountancy were not going to happen. Although in the light of the tragedy the school had relented, and allowed a much subdued Justine to stay with them, Ellena had felt there was no way she could leave her.

Hiding her own heartache, she’d set about the practicalities of living without their parents. Out of necessity she’d checked into their financial security.

Their finances weren’t brilliant, but they weren’t too bad either, she’d discovered. Both she and Justine were aware of an investment which their father had made for them both in the years of their birth. They would each receive a quite substantial amount—but not until their twentieth birthdays.

Meantime, their parents’ house was heavily mortgaged and there were a few debts outstanding; they had all lived well, but there was nothing left over for a rainy day.

Ellena had left school straight away and, excelling at maths, obtained a job with a firm of accountants. She was reasonably well paid for her junior position, but it was nowhere near enough to pay the mortgage.

‘The house has got to go. Do you mind very much?’ she’d told Justine gently.

‘Without Mummy and Daddy here—I don’t care at all,’ Justine had replied listlessly.

‘We’ll find a lovely flat to rent,’ Ellena had decided with a brightness she was far from feeling.

‘If that’s what you want...’

It wasn’t, but facts had to be faced. So the house had been sold—with just enough money left over to settle all bills and, Ellena hoped, pay rent—if they were careful for the next three years—until her twentieth birthday when she could claim the money from her father’s investment.

Justine had not cared for the first four apartments they’d looked at, but had started to perk up when Ellena, trying not to despair, found a flat at the more expensive end of the market.

‘The rent’s a bit more than I’d calculated.’ Ellena had thought it wouldn’t hurt to let Justine know there would have to be a few economies.

‘I’ll leave school and get a job too,’ Justine had declared.

‘I think we can manage while you finish your education,’ Ellena had smiled, and, because Justine was just Justine, she’d given her a loving hug. Justine had clung to her.

It had been a wrench for Ellena to leave the rambling old house she had been brought up in, but, with more than enough furniture to spare, she and Justine had moved into their new home and started to try to rebuild their lives.

On the plus side, Justine had begun behaving herself at school, and, joy of joys, Andrea Keyte, the head of A. Keyte and Company, the accountancy firm Ellena worked for, had called her into her office one wonderful morning. Mrs Keyte, then a divorced lady of thirty-seven, had interviewed her personally for the job, so knew all about her present qualifications, and that she had hoped to study accountancy. Mrs Keyte had, she’d said that wonderful morning, observed how much Ellena enjoyed her work and how easily she seemed to grasp complicated issues. How, she’d enquired, would Ellena feel about being articled to her?

‘You mean—train to be an accountant—to gain my qualifications here?’ Ellena gasped, suddenly starting to see light, unexpected, wonderful light, after the darkness of recent months.

Apparently, that was exactly what Mrs Keyte—who was later to invite Ellena to call her Andrea—did mean. ‘It will mean a lot of hard work,’ she cautioned. ‘Study in the evenings when you’d probably much rather be out with your boyfriend.’

Ellena didn’t have a boyfriend. What time did she have? Before her parents’ deaths she’d spent evenings and weekends either swotting over homework from school, or on some mad adventure with them. Since their deaths, Justine had taken precedence.

‘I can do it,’ she said eagerly. ‘I know I can do it.’

‘It will take all of five years for you to be ready to take your finals,’ Andrea had warned.

‘I want to do it; I really do.’ Ellena, fearful that her employer might change her mind, promised this earnestly.

‘Then you shall.’

And she had. It had not been easy. Left alone to cope with the work and the studying, Ellena knew she would have coped with only minor panics. But, in avowing, ‘I know I can do it’, she had not taken Justine—or rather Justine finally coming to terms with the loss of their parents—into consideration.

By the time Justine’s sixteenth birthday had approached, it seemed she was close to being expelled from school again.

‘I’d better find time to go and see if your headmaster will overlook your truancy one last time,’ Ellena stated when, having arrived home from the office with a load of studying to do, Justine owned up to not having been to school for a while.

‘I shouldn’t, if I were you,’ Justine grinned, ‘I’ve no intention of going back—even if they’d have me.’

‘Justine!’

‘Don’t go on, there’s a love. I’ve been awfully good today.’

Ellena did not trust the word ‘good’. ‘Good, as in...?’

‘As in, I’ve been and got myself a job in a boutique. I start tomorrow.’

‘You’re not sixteen yet!’ Ellena gasped.

‘I told them I was. And I will be, by the time they find out I wasn’t.’ She laughed. She was infectious. Ellena remembered she had laughed too.

Dear, dear Justine, she couldn’t be dead! Ellena choked on a sob of sound, and caught Gideon Langford’s sharp glance on her from across the aisle. She hastily turned to look, unseeing, out of the aircraft window at the night sky.

He looked pretty bleak too, she realised, and strangely felt she wanted to help his suffering in any way she could. She realised her sensitivities at this dreadful time must be bouncing about all over the place, and strove again to calm her emotions. She had no idea what lay before them—it could be the best or the worst of news—so she must gather what strength she could.

Determinedly she pushed the weakening worst thoughts from her. Concentrate on the good things, she instructed herself. That time Justine... Her thoughts were at once back with Justine: Justine laughing, Justine crying; Justine bringing her first boyfriend home, the great unwashed group of her friends who had—to the dismay of their neighbours—almost camped on their doorstep; Justine starting new jobs, lasting a day, a week—miracle of miracles one job had even lasted three months! Justine’s taste in boyfriends improving—her boyfriends starting to look as though they bathed and changed their clothes regularly.

By the time Ellena was twenty, and their finances were at last buoyant, however, she’d had enough of chasing halfway around London on what transport she could find, looking for Justine when she didn’t come home at night. Ellena had found time to have driving lessons, and bought a car. She’d had many qualms about letting Justine have driving lessons as well—she was hard enough to keep tabs on. But, as ever, her soft heart had won over her sensible head, and Justine learned to drive too—and Ellena bought her a car also. Then Justine fell in love—and the man she fell in love with seemed equally fluffy-minded.

Kit Langford wasn’t too keen on work either, by the sound of it. ‘What