Free The Notorious Widow by Allison Lane Page B

arrogant lordlings, he masked his purpose, protecting himself even when society knew what he’d done. Who could look into a man’s mind? Negligence and spite differed only in intent. Since no rational man would take serious offense from these slights, few connected them to later tragedies.
    Like the tailor’s complaint. Who would believe the man had spent eight months in debtors’ prison because Jasper’s friend poked fun at his waistcoat? It was hardly an earthshaking insult. People poked fun at society figures every day. Caricaturists made careers of the practice, publishing illustrations ridiculing the Regent, Brummell, and a host of other figures. He’d featured in one himself when Rowlandson had depicted him as a decrepit old man feasting on a table of young beauties. Granted, he had been twenty-eight at the time, a little old to be cutting a swath through the muslin company with all the abandon of a lad just down from school, but he had been too busy to visit London earlier. Only after he paid his father’s last debt had he been free to pursue the pastimes his friends had enjoyed for years. His behavior may have bordered on wild at first, but a gentleman was expected to bring a certain level of expertise to his marriage bed. How else was he to acquire it?
    He stifled a grin at such a ridiculous justification of a period he would rather forget, then forced his attention back to the business at hand.
    “Is there anyone in society who believes that Rankin is short a sheet?” he asked, resuming his chair.
    She shook her head. “The lower classes are too concerned with avoiding his wrath to ponder his mental state. The upper classes ignore his wildness out of respect for his position as heir to a viscount, though a few consider him recklessly high-spirited. But even if they knew the full extent of his plots, they would turn a blind eye because his victims are commoners.”
    “But you are not from the lower classes,” he reminded her again.
    “I am a woman, which makes it easy to believe the worst of me.”
    True, he agreed silently. Society held men and women to different standards.
    “No one will look beneath the surface to detect his manipulations, let alone examine his motives. He charms the hostesses, hangs on every word of the gossips, disarms the older gentlemen by listening attentively to their advice—”
    “I’ve met men like that,” he admitted. “Their toadeating makes one ill as they admire pets, children, and hunters with such insincerity one wonders if they can tell them apart.”
    “But the ploy is effective,” she reminded him. “The gossips chuckle as they shake their heads over his scrapes, treating him like a favored nephew. Especially Mrs. Telcor. The slightest hint of criticism has her snarling like a mother protecting her cub.”
    “Yet they turn on you, though your position is nearly as high.”
    “Thus speaks ignorance. Mrs. Telcor is the most powerful gossip in Exeter, so few argue with her. My birth may be high, but my position is not. I married down, reducing my consequence even before this began. My work in the parish raises distrust. One lady claims I’ve become a Methodist because I champion the poor instead of chastising them for complaining about their betters.”
    “Ridiculous.” He ignored her bitter tone, though he knew exactly how she felt. He’d been taunted on the same grounds as far back as the Easley affair.
    “But true. The rumors justify every suspicion. And you must remember that Jasper’s name is not connected. No one in society knows he is involved.”
    “Then how did he start them? He must have told someone.” The fire was burning down, so he added coal, not wanting to interrupt the discussion while a servant performed the chore.
    A comment on his unconventional manners hovered on her lips, but she bit it back. “They begin as innuendo. He asks the listener’s help in refuting a wildly improbable tale, then casually drops an insinuation at the