Someone Special Read Online Free PDF

until he marries or is forty years old, which his grandfather thought a responsible age,’ she had explained, her small, bright eyes fixed on Constance’s face as though hoping for tears, protests, perhaps even a threat to break off the engagement. ‘I’m not saying he doesn’t want to marry you, Connie, I’m sure he does, but I do think you should be told about the inheritance.’
    ‘I did know, actually,’ Constance lied, sounding fashionably bored. ‘He’ll have Goldenstone, too, won’t he?’
    Goldenstone was the old house out in the country, surrounded by trees and with a small round lake on which swans sailed serenely, paddling to and fro among the ducks and the leaves which fell on its mirror surface. Constance had seen Goldenstone for the first time the previous autumn and could not forget the white of the swans, the blue of the water, the gold of the floating chestnut leaves.
    ‘Upon his marriage, yes,’ Mrs Radwell confirmed. The hopeful look had disappeared, to be replaced by a sort of calculation. ‘You liked Goldenstone, I understand? James John said you did.’
    ‘He was right,’ Constance had said, coolly, unemotionally. ‘So perhaps I’m marrying JJ to get my hands on Goldenstone, just as you seem to think he may be marrying me to get his hands on his money.’
    And mine . The words, unsaid, floated in the air between them, for Constance, an only child, would inherit a great deal of money one day.
    Mrs Radwell made a vague sound which might havebeen agreement or protest. ‘Darling Connie, how you tease! So when’s the wedding to be?’
    Constance had smiled. They were sitting in the pretty drawing-room of Mrs Radwell’s town house on Chapel Field, which overlooked the gardens. These were in their early spring finery, with snowdrops and crocuses massed beneath the trees and the first of the daffodil spears showing in the damp winter grass.
    ‘JJ says soon,’ she drawled. ‘A month? Perhaps two? I rather fancy April, myself; such a pretty month.’
    ‘Very wise.’ Mrs Radwell picked up her teacup and poured a second cup of tea. ‘It wouldn’t do to wait, would it? I would never call James John fickle, it’s the last thing I’d call him, but he does have so many girlies hanging on his every word … yes, April would be a nice month for a wedding.’
    Mrs Radwell senior, wrong in so many things, had been right about April 1925. It was a glorious month for a wedding and they had a perfect day, all gentle sunshine and warm breezes. They honeymooned in the south of France, in a borrowed villa with a staff of three, so Constance didn’t have to raise a finger, and a private beach where she and JJ swam naked and made love on the sand – or rather on a blanket on the sand, since JJ, who knew about these things, said that sand under the foreskin was something he preferred not to contemplate, let alone experience.
    It was perfection. There were tall pine trees, masses of purple bouganvillea, and a stunning scarlet sports car in which JJ drove her along the coast to the casino to eat roast chicken and strawberries and drink champagne and gamble a little, but not too much, before driving home in the starlight. There was sunshine by day and starshine by night, balmy breezes and gentle music; looking back, Constance realised that first love and the sheer romance of being with JJ had coloured every moment.
    He could have married anyone but he chose me, Constance thought on and off, all through the first glorious fortnight. She looked at herself in the mirrored walls of the bathroom and saw half-a-dozen pretty little Constances, all with fashionably bobbed silver-blonde hair, long, golden-brown legs and small, pink-tipped breasts, and she knew JJ had made a good choice. She loved it when he came to her in here, caressing down her back, titillating, teasing her into an ecstasy of wanting him, and watching her all the time in the mirrors. She thought him the perfect lover, having no comparison, and