Read Online Veil of Lies by Jeri Westerson - Free Book Online Page B

way,” she said.
    “That’s not—” He exhaled a long, bitter sigh. “What does it matter?” He clutched the portrait for a moment before he tossed it across the table. It clattered faceup. Philippa’s painted face gazed serenely toward the ceiling. “She is, after all, only a servant.”
    “Only a servant? They do not paint portraits of servants.”
    Jack made a grab for the jug, but Eleanor easily moved it from his reach. “She was a chambermaid in her master’s household,” Jack said in a loud whisper, looking back at Crispin. “And he married her! Now that’s a right smart lass.”
    Eleanor nodded knowingly. “There’s many a lass who betters herself by marrying the master. It happens more often than you think.”
    “Perhaps in the merchant class,” Crispin mumbled. “But knights do not marry their servants.”
    Eleanor’s kind demeanor darkened. “Oh, it’s that again, is it?” She rose, her voice shrill. “It’s not that she won’t look twice at you; it’s that you scorn her class!”
    Gilbert arrived at that moment, a barrel-shaped man with dark eyes and brown hair. Crispin glanced at him hopefully while Eleanor postured over him like a Fury, her mouth flapping and her finger wagging.
    Flustered, Gilbert frowned at his wife. “What’s this? Wife, you’re too loud.”
    “I am not loud enough!” she exclaimed, raising her voice. Some of the patrons turned, but those more used to this exchange slumped back over their cups and edged away.
    Gilbert clutched her arm. “You will be still!” He looked at Crispin apologetically.
    She shook him off. “I will not be still. This intolerable man, who has lived these eight years in this parish under our care and guidance, still cannot suffer the lower classes, even though he is now one of them.”
    “Now Eleanor,” said Gilbert, lowering her to the bench beside him.
    “He’ll drink our wine and beg our advice,” said Eleanor, “but when it comes to it, he’s a lord and we are peasants, and he will not demean himself with our lowly selves.”
    Crispin set the cup aside. “Perhaps I should go.”
    “Now Crispin,” said Gilbert, eyeing his wife. “There’s no need for that. It takes getting used to,” he said to her. “His state, I mean. Even after eight years. He’s been a nobleman for far longer than that. It’s in the blood.”
    They talked about Crispin as if he weren’t sitting there. It didn’t matter. Crispin could not tell whether he flushed more from embarrassment or anger. “It is in the blood,” he said soberly.
    Eleanor picked up the portrait and wagged it at Crispin. “If you have any love for this woman at all, nought should stand in your way. You’re not a grand knight any longer. Who could speak ill of you if you sought some happiness? Even amongst the lower classes.”
    “I never said I loved her!” He stood, weaving slightly from the wine. He opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind and swatted the air in a futile gesture. Gilbert took the little portrait from his wife and eyed it with raised brows, but Jack snatched it from his hands when Crispin made no move toward it, stuffed it in his tunic, and scurried ahead to open the tavern door for him.
    Crispin called himself a fool ten times over. He never thought of himself as a man who wore his heart on his sleeve. It’s the drinking, that’s what it was. It loosened his tongue, unmanned him. And in front of Eleanor! His face warmed with a blush. Never again! Philippa Walcote was only a client. A client ! Nothing more. He didn’t need these unnecessary complications in his life. Women. A dog was more satisfying companionship. At least they didn’t talk.
    He lumbered into the street and soon heard Jack’s nimble steps behind. Crispin inhaled the sour odors of London’s poorer streets, silently lamenting the lost days where he rode aloft a fine horse, far from the muddy gutters and ingrained poverty of the city’s lower class. He used to throw them a