The Bartered Virgin

by Chevon Gael

  A muffled voice raised in urgency permeated the closed door. “David! I know you’re in there, man. Open this door.”

  Tip? David shrugged into his dressing gown and answered groggily, “Hold on. Is the hotel on fire?” He fumbled with the chain and finished belting his gown in time to clear the door before Tip charged in.

  He threw a newspaper at David. “What the hell is the meaning of this?”

  “Calm down, Tippy. Let a man wash the sleep from his eyes.”

  “Don’t Tippy me, dammit. You should be shot.”

  “Pray, what has happened?” David took the newspaper and sat down at a desk. “Open the drapes, will you? Can’t see a blasted thing.”

  A bright shaft of light pierced the room and David turned toward it. “To what are you referring, old chap?”

  Tip came to stand over him. He plucked the newspaper, which David noted was the Fifth Avenue Circular, from his grasp and opened it to an article circled with a black pencil.

  “This!” He pointed to the offending piece. “We’re ruined, I tell you. Ruined. Father’s firm will never get another client. Mother fainted dead away at breakfast this morning and Margaret has had to summon a physician. And Winn. My God! Winn will never be talked about again except in hushed whispers.”

  A visitor to our fair city, David Wolshingham, the Earl of Knightsbridge, was seen on more than one occasion escorting a certain Titian-haired beauty to his private room on the opulent sixth floor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Rumor has it that the “lady” in question is the daughter of a certain Park Avenue lawyer. Witnesses say that the “lady” did not emerge from the earl’s suite until the wee hours of the morning. The carriage driver who was subsequently interviewed said he dropped the “lady” off at the address of one of Ward McAllister’s Century Club members.

  Methinks one does not have to addle their brain too rashly to ascertain the identity of this family. For shame, Mr. and Mrs. Knickerbocker, for allowing your daughter to venture out unescorted! And for an unmarried girl to be behind closed doors in a man’s hotel room! What’s next for social affluence—girls appearing at their coming out balls in bathing attire?

  And speaking of bathing attire, yesterday at Coney Island, the same couple was spotted cavorting shamelessly in the sand in full view of Sunday afternoon beachgoers and their families. Is there no modesty left in the world?

  There was more but David didn’t bother to read further. He did, however, note the author’s name on the scathing article. It was Sam Jones.

  “Well?” Tip demanded as he stood, hands on hips and tapping his foot.

  “A damning article, indeed. I believe I’ll sue them.”

  His friend’s shoulders sagged. “So, it’s not true. Father will have a fine time with them in court, not to mention what your influence will accomplish.”

  David lit a cigar and crossed his legs. “I didn’t say it wasn’t true. However, their account of my title is completely inaccurate. Typical American lack of propriety.”

  Tip towered menacingly over him. “Do you mean that you lured my sister to this room and…and…”

  “What we did here is none of your or anyone else’s business. Your sister is my fiancée. We shall be wedded shortly, as it shall soon be posted in the Times Herald. Let your parents read that instead of this trash.” He threw the paper back at Tip. “And yes, I intend to seek legal action. If for nothing else than to reclaim my bride’s impeccable reputation. I shall insist on nothing less.”

  Tip bristled under his dismissal. “I want your solemn word that Winn is innocent in this fiasco. And you haven’t asked how she’s taking all this.”

  David puffed on his cigar then trimmed the spent ash on the edge of a crystal ashtray. “If I know my bride-to-be—and I think I know her better than any of you—she’ll come through this with great aplomb. In the meantime, sit down. We need to have a little chat about your father and Wall Street.”

  “Winn, you didn’t!”

  “Shh, Kitty. Father thinks I’m upstairs locked in my room.” She eyed the closed door of her father’s study and leaned in closer to the receiver. She jammed the earpiece against the side of her head.

  “How’s your mother taking it?”

  “She’s in quite a state. Tip barged out of here in the middle of breakfast. Father went tearing out to his office screaming about suing for libel.”

  “Sue Sam Jones and the Circular? It’s never been done. Besides, he seemed like such a nice chap when I talked to him at the hotel.”

  “Catharine Terwilligar! How could you?”

  “I only told him we talked, and that when you got into the elevator I heard you ask the porter to take you to the sixth floor. That is where Lord Knightsbridge is staying.”

  Winn pressed her fingers against her aching temples. “It’s Lord Wolshingham, Kit. Oh, God! What else did you say?”

  “Nothing. I saw Mr. Jones get into the next elevator and ask the porter to take him up. That’s all.”

  It was enough. And too much. She knew Kitty wasn’t entirely to blame. From all accounts, Jones had talked to the waiter who brought up their supper, the elevator porter and the carriage driver who’d driven her home. The scoundrel even followed them to Coney Island. Regardless of her explanation, Winn’s guilt was evident in the sordid picture of her lying on the sand with her skirt pushed up to expose her knees. David was kneeling beside her with his arms around her. It looked very intimate. No one would believe it was an accident now.

  Kitty’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Winn? Winn? Are you there? Oh, what an adventure.”

  Winn rested her tired body in her father’s tufted burgundy leather desk chair. If only she could tell Kitty exactly what kind of adventure it was. Suddenly she heard the front door slam. “Kit, I have to run. Someone’s home.”

  She hung up the phone just in time to see the study room door burst open. Her father stood angrily at the threshold. He was shaking, his face an angry black cloud.

  “Is it true? Did you spoil yourself with Lord Knightsbridge?”

  “It’s Lord Wolshingham, Papa.”

  “I don’t give a damn what his name is. It’ll be in the obituary by the time I get through with him.”

  “No! David did nothing wrong.”

  “So it’s not true. Good! At least there’ll be no bastard to worry about. We’re ruined enough as it is.”

  Winn winced at her father’s vulgar description. What he described was far from the tender passion she and David shared. At the same time, she found it hard to skirt the truth—that she and David had shared a bed together without the benefit of the church’s blessing. How could she explain how she felt? They loved each other. That should be explanation enough. “We are going to be married. You decreed it not days ago and planned it for weeks without even telling me.” She stood to face him. “Whatever decisions I made with my future husband, I made on my own.”

  “We’ll see. There’ll be no marriage to a scoundrel like that. The firm won’t stand up to this kind of scandal. My clients will scatter like pigeons. We’ll be bankrupt in no time.”

  “What?” Winn cried in dismay. He couldn’t call off the wedding. He’d lose the money he already advanced to David and be ruined. David told her as much. Besides, she wanted to marry him. The past few days with him had opened up an entirely new world for her. David loved her despite her independent spirit. She could still do everything she wanted and David could restore his beloved home.

  “What about the money you’ve given him?”

  “He told you about that?”

  Winn nodded.

  “I doubt he’ll make good on his threat to sue for breach. I’ll go to court and get back the money I’ve advanced him.”

  “How? A court case will only cause more grief and scandal.”

  “Then I’ll quietly have the amount taken out of your inheritance. God knows you owe your mother and me something over this mess.” He talked as if she were a mere Wall Street commodity and not his only d
aughter.

  “But Papa, I really want David to have the money. And if I don’t marry him then who will I marry?”

  “You should have thought about that before you brought shame down on us. Already people are saying you whored yourself out.”

  She felt the blood drain from her face. “Father!”

  “Papa!”

  Tip had returned and joined the altercation. “Winn is not a whore. David is a fine, honorable man and you wanted this marriage between them. Under the circumstances, don’t you think it should take place?”

  Zachariah Percy looked from his son to his daughter. He pressed his lips together in a tight line. “Perhaps we should wait a few weeks and wait for the gossip to die down. If, as you say, nothing happened then we can call off the wedding. Perhaps in a year or so we can spend the season in Newport or even Washington—somewhere where your reputation won’t burden us. There might be another offer made for you then.”

  “I’m not going to wait,” cried Winn. “I’m marrying David even if we have to run away. I’m of age.”

  “You do that, young lady, and there’ll be no dowry.”

  “Yes there will, Papa. What would happen if the Fifth Avenue Circular were to print the source of my dowers? That it came from a whorehouse in New Orleans, from a woman you yourself visited on more than one occasion. If that were to become known, certainly no man would have me.”

  There was stunned silence after her speech. Her father stood glowering, his face florid. His chest rose and fell, pumping out indignant breaths. Tip’s astonishment, too, was easily read. He broke the awkward silence.

  “Sounds like blackmail, Father.”

  “Shut up, Woodrow! And for the record, I never slept with Louise Desjardin. I only handled her business interests. Now go see to your mother. I want to speak to Winnifred. Alone.”

  Winn watched with dread as Tip reluctantly left the room and closed the door behind him. His presence had given her some courage to stand up to her father. Now she wasn’t so sure of herself.

  “Sit down, Winnifred. I’m only going to tell you this once. There will be no marriage between you and Knightsbridge now. You really don’t understand what you’ve done to us—all of us. This paper—” he angrily yanked his copy of the Circular from inside his jacket and threw it at her, “—has denounced this lord as a defiler of young women and your mother and I for indulging you. Well, no more freedom for you, girl.”

  Winn stood firm under her father’s edict. “I have the diary, Papa. I can prove the money for my dowry came from a prostitute. I’ll show that to the papers.”

  Her father eyed her and snorted. “Stupid girl. You don’t have the diary. It’s locked in my—” He yanked opened the desk drawer. The look on his face was small satisfaction to Winn. His eyed narrowed and he let out a snort before slamming the drawer shut. “You silly, careless child. I knew it was a mistake!” Father pounded his fist on the desk. He shot a glance to the far wall and seemed suddenly caught by the study’s electric light shining on a portrait of a young Mary Percy. His brow suddenly withered. “But your mother’s heart was broken. I would have done anything to see her smile again.” His voice was filled with anguish, a sadness Winn had never seen before. They had always seemed happy in their idle New York lifestyle. That they had ever been unhappy in the past never occurred to her. Protocol called for any disagreements between a husband and a wife to be kept strictly above stairs and never displayed in front of the children. Yet here was her father, the staid, impenetrable leader of their family shaken to the core, admitting that once, apparently before she was born, all was not as he had wished.

  She didn’t interrupt him as he continued. “She wanted a little girl so badly so I…” He stopped then, his eyes refocusing on Winn. Once again he became her disapproving parent. “I can petition to have your dowry overturned.”

  Winn couldn’t believe what she was hearing from him. “That money is mine. It belongs to me when I marry or on the day I turn twenty-one.”

  “You obviously don’t understand the economics involved here. There is interest on that money, has been since it was left to you. I have been investing it. Everything I did, I did for you, Winnifred. Look at the house you live in, the clothes on your back—” he grabbed the lace of her shirtwaist collar with a force that tore the delicate stitching, “—the food you eat. And what about your mother? Would you have her go about on foot without money for carriages? What about the jewels she wears to balls and cotillions? Where do you think they came from?”

  Winnifred flinched, her previous bravado shrinking under her father’s temper. She willed herself to gather the courage not to cry in front of him. But as his voice grew angrier, his emotional gestures threatened to become physical. Waving hands came within inches of her face. Pointing fingers stabbed at the buttons near her throat. Winn locked her gaze on her shaking hands and waited out the storm.

  “All we expected of you was to make a suitable match. You could have had your choice of nice young men from the best of families, but no. You hemmed and hawed and cast them off. Your mother has been at her wit’s end for fear you’d end up a spinster. And this is how you repay us.”

  Winn looked at him, stunned. “I didn’t realize I had to pay you back for being born into this family.”

  “Damned girl! You weren’t—” He stopped suddenly.

  Winn’s heart slammed against her breast. Her anger and his omission egged her on. “I wasn’t what? Margaret always said I wasn’t born here. I was brought here! Brought from where? Tell me the truth!” What truth? What was she trying to get him to admit?

  “From the moment you were brought home from the hospital, dammit! Where else?”

  Winn sagged into the chair. Of course from where else! It made perfect sense that she wasn’t born upstairs as Tip had been but in one of the new, modern private hospitals for women. Certainly that was no crime. As for Mother, perhaps there was a reason she had to be taken to the hospital. She finally had the little girl she always wanted. And Winn had never disappointed her. Until now.

  “You have a duty in this society, young lady, responsibilities.”

  “What responsibility? To get married to further Mother’s social ambitions and elevate you in your firm? What about me? What about my happiness?”

  She was yelling now. She had never yelled at anyone, not even Tip. But this was her life, hers and David’s. It was their future she was fighting for.

  Her father continued his angry barrage. “Your happiness is what I say it is. And if you insist on defying us and playing the whore then I may have no other choice but to have you declared hysterical and sent to the asylum upstate.”

  Winn gasped. He didn’t mean it. He was trying to scare her.

  “And furthermore, you are going to your Aunt Gertrude in St. Louis for a while until this thing blows over. Perhaps once you prove yourself not to be unbalanced you may return home and we can decide what to do with you. Now go upstairs and pack your things.”

  “But Papa, what if—”

  “If there’s one thing I learned from New Orleans, it’s how the whores stay in business. We’ll find someone to take care of that problem, if there is one. Now get out of my sight!”

  Winn raced up the stairs and ran into Tip on the landing. She grabbed his arm and frantically dragged him into her room.

  “Oh, Tippy, he’s sending me away. He thinks I’m crazy.” She cried her grief into his shoulder while he held her.

  “There, there, Winn. David will be here soon and he’ll explain everything to Father. It will be all right.”

  “Oh n-no,” she sobbed. “Father says no marriage under any circumstances. Poor David. Poor Knightsbriar.”

  “Shh. Hush, now, Winny. I’m going back to get David right now. You just wait here.”

  “Y-you h-haven’t called me W-Winny in ages,” she hiccoughed through sobs that shook her to the very core. “Papa wants me to go and pack. He’s putting me on the train to Aunt Gert. Oh, Tip. She’s a ho
rrid shrew. I can’t stay with her.”

  Tip tilted her chin. “Then I suggest you start packing. England is a very long voyage.”

  Winn smiled at him through her tears. She would miss her brother’s quiet resolve. “Y-yes. I will.”

  She returned to her room and began feverishly stripping her closet. Hatboxes, muslin-wrapped gowns, even her rarely-used leather riding boots, all saw the light through her bedroom window. Her mind raced as she tried to think what she’d need for England. Warm cloaks for riding in the cool, English countryside. Sturdy shoes for the miles of walking into nearby towns. Then there was her household dowry. Trunks of linens and boxes of china and silver. She’d have to get them out of here as well. She should have thought about that before Tip left. She and David would need two carriages to ferry everything to the ship. She paused and snapped her fingers at the solution. Margaret! She’d send the maid to David’s hotel with a message. There was a sharp knock on the door. Winn sighed with relief. “Come in, Margaret.”

  “It’s your father.”

  Winn opened the door. He peered past her to peruse the open trunk and piles of clothes laid out on the bed. He nodded approvingly.

  “At least you still know how to obey your father. I’ve sent Tip to the Grand Central Depot to buy your train ticket. According to the schedule, there’s a seven-thirty train leaving for Philadelphia this evening with a connection to St. Louis. I intend for you to be on it. I have sent a telegram to your Aunt Gertrude.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. And just in case you’re thinking of doing anything rash, the front door will be closed to you until you leave.”

  Winn sat on the bed. She’d have to bide her time until Tip arrived with David. “Yes, Papa,” she answered automatically. “Would you send Margaret to help me pack?” She was as calm and polite as she could be under the circumstances.