Read Online [Churchminster #3] Wild Things by Jo Carnegie - Free Book Online Page B

up?
    At Clanfield Hall, Frances knocked on her husband’s study door. As well as spending many hours a day in their respective studies, the couple also had separate bedrooms. Ambrose had developed prostate problems some years back, and told Frances he didn’t want to disturb her in the night. Frances had suspected it was more of a pride thing and that he didn’t want to admit to growing old, but Ambrose had been so insistent, she hadn’t pushed it. Of course, it had been difficult for her. She still had her needs. Despite Ambrose’s growing crabbiness, Frances still found her noble-looking husband attractive. By contrast she felt Ambrose hadn’t looked at her that way in years. Sometimes Frances wondered why she bothered making the effort.
    She knocked again.
    ‘Enter!’
    Frances pushed the door open and went in. Old
Racing Posts
and
Daily Telegraphs
littered the floor, while the dark green walls were filled with watercolours of the Fraser family’s favourite hunting horses and gun dogs from over the centuries. Ambrose looked up from his chair by the fireplace. Sailor was at his feet dozing happily. ‘Yes, Frances, what is it?’
    She went and sat in the other chair, but not before having to move a pile of spent cartridges from Ambrose’s recent shooting trip. ‘Why do you keep these stupid things?’ she complained. Ambrose shot her a look over his Lester Piggott autobiography but didn’t say anything.
    ‘The Jolly Boot are holding a welcome party tonight for the film people.’ Frances told him. ‘Do you fancy going? It would be good to introduce ourselves, especially as they’re going to be coming here.’
    ‘Do I have to stand by the bar making bloody silly conversation all night?’
    ‘It’s a welcome party, Ambrose. That’s the whole point.’
    ‘Harrumph!’ he said and disappeared behind his book again.
    Frances stared in frustration at her husband. ‘I take it that’s a no?’
    He growled in response. Frances stood up and left the room silently, before she said anything she’d regret. They never went out any more! Privately, she’d been astounded Ambrose had agreed to let them film at Clanfield in the first place, but she knew beneath the bluster the plight of Churchminster had affected him.
    Back in her own study, she walked over to one of the sash windows. The great expanse of the Clanfield estate stretched out before her. Frances cast her mind back to the day she’d moved in, as a young impressionable 20-year old. Her parents had been delighted at the match, even though Ambrose was twenty years her senior, and Frances had shared their enthusiasm. Ambrose had been romantic back then; Frances smiled as she remembered how he’d proposed to her. On one of their many walks round the estate when they’d first started courting, Ambrose had called his favourite gun dog, Trigger, to heel, got a ring out of a box he’d put on Trigger’s collar, and gone down on one knee to ask her to become his wife.
    ‘I’ll make you the happiest woman in Gloucestershire!’ he’d declared.
    Frances had laughed. ‘Aren’t you meant to say, “the happiest woman in the world?”’
    Ambrose had chuckled, ‘Clanfield is the world, Frances . You’ve got everything here you need.’
    At the time she’d believed him. She’d had such aspirations for them, for the house, the future. Yet life had slipped her by.
    Where had it all started to go wrong?
she wondered.
    The Jolly Boot looked fantastic. In keeping with the Regency theme, it had been decked out like a seventeenth-century tavern. All the furniture had been moved out and replaced with long wooden tables, on which stone jugs of ale stood. Straw littered the floor, while Jack, Beryl and the bar staff were dressed in period dress, the men in smock shirts and breeches, the women in low-cut long dresses festooned with ribbons and other fripperies. In one corner stood a huge, succulent hog roast, slowly turning, while in another a band dressed as travelling