The Bartered Virgin (3 page)

She picked up her own lace tatting and arranged herself on a pillbox sofa. A silver tray for calling cards sat on a small box table beside her. The drawing room, like all rooms in the Percys’ Park Avenue mansion, was overcrowded with leather and rosewood furniture, and overstuffed with silk pillows, lace coverings and tapestries. Mary Percy reigned over a typical upper-class household and sat primed for another typical day.

Mother’s “in” days were tedious affairs. Winn conceded to do her duty, knowing it would keep her mother happy, but feeling somewhat resentful at being displayed like a prize broodmare at an auction. After an hour or so, she could plead faintness and ask to be excused. She always remembered to do this in front of stately society matrons so they could see what a lady she was, and ultimately set her up as an example to their daughters. For their sons, Winn exhibited her mandatory two Chopin pieces, read sonnets in French and accepted invitations to stroll in the Percys’ magnificent back garden where, once out of her mother’s hearing, she explained her reluctance to enter into any marriage as a result of a weak heart. And please would the gentleman not speak of her condition in front of her mother as it upset the poor woman so? So far, her ploy had worked and her reputation as a dying hothouse flower remained intact. No man wanted a weak broodmare.

“Winn dear, there’s something I’ve been meaning to speak to you about.”

Mary didn’t look up and Winn continued to absently stitch white daisies onto her canvas, inwardly suspecting the worst. “Yes, Mama” she answered automatically.

“Do you remember that friend of Woodrow’s from Harvard, David Knightsbridge?”

Winn ground her back teeth together and nearly avoided pricking her middle finger.
Here it comes,
she thought. She felt trapped, doomed. Maybe now was a convenient time to faint for real.

“No, I can’t say that I do,” she replied, keeping her eyes on her needlework.

“Well, no matter. He’s coming to supper tomorrow night and I would like you to entertain him. I hope you will become better acquainted. It’s important for your father.”

Winn dutifully nodded but failed to see how her being amiable to a stranger was important to papa.

“What I mean to say, dear, is that I hope you have given some thought to marriage now that you are out.”

Winn stabbed her needle into the canvas and bit her tongue. This conversation was becoming most uncomfortable. Luckily the front door bell rang. Winn breathed a sigh of relief. The first of Mother’s callers had arrived. Luckier still, it was Audrey Terwilligar with Kitty in tow.

Sara, the Percys’ head parlor maid, announced the visitors. “Mrs. Terwilligar and Miss Catharine, Mrs. Percy.”

Mary rose to greet her guests. The two older women kissed cheeks and Kitty curtsied demurely. She never failed to mention to Winn that Kitty had an “unfortunate” face—plain, with mousy brown hair and eyes to match. Kitty had few friends, so Mother approved of Winn spending time with her. “It may help to make her popular if she is seen with you.” If she only knew!

“May Kitty and I take our tea in the garden?” Winn asked sweetly.

If her mother thought about hesitating, Mrs. Terwilligar came to the rescue. “Oh, take yourselves off. I do need to get Catharine out of my hair. She’s just too taxing. Now, Mary, about the wedding…”

Winn linked arms with Kitty and the two strode into the very back corner of the garden, followed by Josephine, Winn’s overfed white Persian cat.

“Tell me it isn’t true!” Kitty flounced into a wrought iron chair, indignant that she’d been left out of Winn’s confidence. “You’re not getting married.”

“Not if I can help it, Kit. I only found out from Tip this morning that Father’s had it all arranged. You’ve got to help me,” she wailed. “I can’t marry this man. I don’t know anything about him and I’ve only seen him once.” Josephine, as if sensing her mistress’s distress, rubbed up against her legs.

“Why did your father do it?”

“The damned money.” Winn found it soothing to curse. She’d added some new words to her vocabulary by listening in on Father’s telephone calls. She was eager to display her prowess to Kitty on their next adventure. “Father’s offered my dowry to this Lord Wolshingham and me along with it.” Suddenly the reality of her future sank in. Her father had sold her! Winn’s dowry in exchange for a title. Perhaps she shouldn’t have rejected so many suitors after all.

“If only I could have waited. The money would have been mine free and clear when I turned twenty-one. We could have done all those things we planned, Kit. Travel to Europe, India, gone to Egypt and seen the pyramids like Nellie Bly. Now all I’ll ever see is some dank, dark castle. Oh, it’s just too awful,” she sniffed. Her world seemed on the verge of collapse. So far, her friend had offered no sound solution.

“Where’s your…you know?” Kitty held two fingers to her lips.

“Do you think we ought to?”

“Mother will be chatterboxing for hours. Your wedding is a grand source of conversation around the Circle, you know.” The infamous Fifth Avenue Circle was a jealously closed clique of the New York upper classes. The Astors, Morgans and Vanderbilts were the peak of the upper echelon and carefully vetted each new subscription for membership. As a distinguished financial lawyer, Zachariah Percy’s name was put forth on a number of occasions by the bankers who held the great New York fortunes. Each year, Mother anxiously attended the Circle’s daytime social events—the teas, cotillions and luncheons—and afterward paced her bedroom for hours hoping and praying the Percy name would be added to the roster. When it finally happened, she collapsed momentarily in relief, and then immediately arranged a flurry of visits to dressmakers and jewelers to outfit her and Winn for the Circle’s evening events, which they were now entitled to attend.

“Damn the Circle! Oh, sorry, Kit. The…you know, are in a silver box under the cupid sculpture near the fence.”

“Dandy! Keep watch, will you.”

Kitty hurried over to the wall and tipped up the end of the small garden sculpture. Underneath was a hollowed-out hole containing a neat package in rough toweling. She unwrapped it to expose a silver cigarette case, and quickly drew out two cigarettes and a match. Kitty handed them to Winn, who lit them while she rewrapped the package and placed it back in the statue.

“This is much better.” Kitty sighed and drew on her smoke. “Now I can think. So this fella is a lord. Nifty catch, I’d say. But not if what I hear is true. Poor as a church mouse, homely as a pug.” She coughed slightly and tsk-tsked. “Poor Winn, a dollar princess. We’ve got to do something. You’re no Connie Vanderbilt, that’s for sure. She wanted to be the Duchess of Marlborough. Lot of good it did her, too. Lords want rich brides and lots of babies. The wives have to behave like ladies and serve tea and talk about the weather. You’d never be able to smoke, or swear, or drink beer or any of the fun things. Trust me, Winn. These English lords want old-fashioned ladies of the manor, all prim and proper.”

Winn puffed on her own cigarette until the smoke made her dizzy, which was why she only smoked when Kitty was around. What she said made sense, though. A plan was forming fast. What if she wasn’t prim and proper? What if she was the antithesis of all Knightsbridge expected? What if…

Winn threw her cigarette stump to the cobblestones and stubbed it out. If Mother or Father saw the evidence they’d think Tip had been out here.

She grabbed Kitty by the shoulders and practically dragged her across the garden. “Let’s go. I’ve got an idea but we’ll have to hurry.”

“Where are we going? Ow, I almost burned myself. What’s going on?”

“We’re going up to my room and we haven’t got much time.”

“Time for what?”

“Lord David Knightsbridge is coming to supper tomorrow night, so you’ve got to help me!”

“Winn, wait. What am I helping you with now?”

But Winn felt too exhilarated at her hasty scheme to answer her friend’s protests. Blood raced through her veins. Excitement quickened her breath until she thought her corset would burst. Her mind spun a myriad of ideas. Her secret stash of rouge and rice powder. The bathing ladies and their indecent show of ankles. She eyed Kitty’s smoldering cigarette.

“You and I are going to turn me into a harlot.”

“Got any chewing gum? Never mind, I’ll leave you a piece before I go.” Kitty coached Winn on how not to entice an English suitor. “Remember to chew with your mouth open and smack it loud. Slouch when you walk. That should be easy without your corset.”

Winn agreed.
Everything
was easier without the darned, damned corset. She had stripped down to her drawers and chemise. The corset was the first thing to go.

Kitty sprawled across Winn’s bed, overseeing the transformation. “Remember the bathing girls, the ones who wore leotard tights like Anna Held? They sashayed. Swing your hips, Winn.”

Winn tried to sashay as instructed by putting one foot in front of the other and sticking her hips out as she walked, but lost her balance and started to teeter. She overcompensated trying to right herself and wound up on the bed in her friend’s lap.

“This will never do.” Kitty sighed. “Try again. No, better yet, watch me.” She parked her hands on her hips and walked away from Winn, making her bottom sway so her skirt swished like a pendulum. “See, that’s how you sashay. Now you try.”

Once again, Winn stumbled across the floor. “Maybe I should put my skirt back on. Then I can watch myself in the mirror and see if the hem brushes across the floor like yours.”

Kitty leaned against the bedpost. “I guess you’ll have to practice some. Now, face the mirror. You have to practice your kissing.”

Winn stared wide-eyed and chewed her bottom lip, reluctant to accept her next task.

“You have to try to kiss him. It will prove you aren’t a proper lady.”

Behaving like a harlot wasn’t easy. “Oh. I guess you’re right.”

“Now, pucker your lips and repeat,
prunes, prudence, prurient
.”

“What does
prurient
mean?”

“I don’t know. I heard Twig say it once and asked him. He told me nice girls didn’t need to know those kinds of words, so I think it’s something naughty.”

Winn practiced her pucker, listening intently to Kit’s instructions.

“When he takes you out into the garden, remember to smoke. And swear sometimes. No lady swears in front of her beau.”

“What if Mother makes me play the piano? That’ll give me up. I wish I knew how to play Negro songs. Or one of those new George M. Cohan tunes. Mother says they’re vulgar.”

Kit’s eyes lit up with the idea. Then she frowned. “Well, we don’t have time for that.”

“Oh, and the damned French recitations.” Winn sighed. “I’ve got to tangle that up somehow.”

“What do you usually read?”

“Shakespeare sonnets.”

“Got anything else?” Kitty asked.

Winn stopped and thought for a moment. “There’s a French book in Father’s study. Funny, he’s never let me read it. I saw it sitting out once when I came in. He shoved it back in the drawer pretty quick. Perhaps it’s something scandalous.”

“Can you get it?”

“Father’s still at work. Let’s sneak down to the study.” Winn hastily pulled on her dressing gown. Kitty followed her down to the darkened room. Once inside, they closed the door and opened the draperies. Winn lifted the blotter and grinned when she produced the key. She opened one drawer after another, rifling through her father’s desk until she found her prize. “Got it.”

The girls settled on a sofa. Winn opened the book and began to read the handwritten notes.

“Why, this belonged to Louise Desjardin, the woman who left me the money.”

“What’s it say? You know my French is bad.”

“Settle down, Kit. Hmm…” Winn turned a few pages and began to read, translating into English. “He suckled at my breasts like a child. Each lap of his tongue teased my nipples and sent my senses into ecstasy. He pulled my gown off my shoulders and pushed me down on the bed. Lower and lower, his lips kissed a trail of fire to the barrier of my garter belt. One by one he released my stockings and slid them down my thighs. I was naked before him now and the hunger was evident in every inch of him.”

Kitty snatched the book off her lap. “Do you know what this is?”

Winn shook her head. Her cheeks felt hot and flushed. The book was scandalous. The words reeled in her head and branded her ears. That this woman who had patted her head, fed her chocolates and sent her expensive gifts every year on her birthday, would lay herself naked and open before a man. She tried to imagine the scene. The naked woman lying on the bed, a man touching her. Kissing her. Winn shuddered and swallowed.
She
could never do anything like that.

“This is a pillow book,” exclaimed Kitty as she greedily leafed through the pages.

“A what?”

Kitty lowered her voice. “A pillow book. A book about ladies of loose virtue. This is about what men and women do when—” she lowered her voice even more and gulped, “—when they go to bed at night.”

Winn looked at her sage friend and tried to sound worldly. “Oh. Of course, I knew that.”

Kitty gave her a doubtful glance. “Just how much do you know about men and their, um, private parts? Ah, what men have under the trousers?”

Winn hesitated. “Well, silly, they have…they have a bottom. And they go to the water closet to relieve themselves, just like we do.”

Kitty stared at her and shook her head slowly.

“They don’t?”

“Read on.”

“He presented his cock to me at last. It was a wondrous thing, expressing its freedom and voraciousness with a stiff wag and a glistening tip. To see it was one thing, but to touch it,
mon dieu,
all hot and thick, the shaft pulsing with life, ready to invade my cunt. I looked forward to it, knowing that it would surpass eating my pussy—”

Winn snapped the book shut. “Great day in the morning! Is that what men do when they go to bed with a woman?” She jumped up and started pacing. “No! I’ll not marry a man who’d even think about eating my…” She paused and eyed Josephine, who sat disinterested and purring on the windowsill. Closing her eyes tight, she shook her head. “Impossible! The passage must mean something else.”

Winn clenched her fist and pressed it against her stomach. Her knees felt weak. She sank to the sofa, hung her head and tried to think.

She heard Kitty kneel down beside her. The girl’s arms slid around her shoulders in a comforting hug.

“I don’t know what to say, Winn. I’m as confused as ever now. I asked my brother once about, you know, courting and kissing.” Her voice descended into a whisper. “All he ever does is laugh and joke about visiting ‘a sweet, little pussy on the Lower East Side who’s a great teacher’ and how I’ll learn these things when I get married. I tried to ask Mother once but…” She trailed off as she shrugged. Winn sighed in agreement. Intimacies were an absolute taboo, never to be discussed openly. What went on between married people behind closed doors was anyone’s guess.

She felt Kitty shudder beside her. Her brow had taken on the most unbecoming pucker.

“Winn, what’s a cunt?”

Winn dug into her dressing gown pocket and retrieved a handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes, blew her nose and tried to think of an answer. She dared look at the book. So far it had told them more in five minutes than they’d heard from anyone in eighteen years.

“I…I don’t know, Kit. It must be something lascivious or it wouldn’t be in the book. Maybe it’s a French word I’m not familiar with. Whatever it is, it sounds like it beats the pants off George M. Cohan for vulgarity.”

“English lords know a lot of French. Maybe you should ask David. If he thinks you know that word, maybe he won’t stay for supper.”

“Hmm…you’ve got something there. I should read more. If I appear to know a lot about French bedroom words, he’ll think I’m not proper.” Her outlook brightened. Yes, she decided. It was a bully plan!

Winn barely managed to keep herself disinterested over supper that evening. To her irritation, David Knightsbridge was the only topic of conversation through the entire meal. Tip saw him safely to his suite at the Fifth Avenue Hotel and they were going to see the sights tomorrow before dinner. More than once between courses she heard a litany of David’s manly virtues. David this and David that. How wonderful England was and how exciting the coming weeks would be.

Her mother chatted endlessly about Worth gowns and Winn’s trousseau and how many people to invite to the wedding—all without her input. Winn ate in demure silence, then excused herself and went upstairs.

She spent a better part of the night pacing the floor, practicing her sashaying and thinking up all kinds of bold things to say. She tried reading more of Madame Desjardin’s book, which she discovered was a very descriptive diary of fascinating names and clandestine events. She managed to figure out that men and women usually went to bed naked, at least in New Orleans. But without pictures, a lot of what went where was lost to her. The fact that Louise Desjardin had resided in a house of ill repute and made her vast fortune by entertaining men of importance did little to curb Winn’s admiration for the woman. Knowing her dowry was the result of a prostitute’s trade only served to make her more unworthy as a highborn lord’s lady wife. She would be sure to point this out to David tomorrow evening.

She tucked the book back under the mattress and fell asleep trying to decide which of her new swear words was the most profane.

The next morning, David Knightsbridge awoke and promptly rang for breakfast. He had no desire to dress and take the passenger elevator down to the second floor dining room even if four meals a day were included in the outrageous price of three dollars a night. He was forced to lay out his own clothes in the absence of a valet. Preston, his late father’s man, claimed he was too old to travel and adamantly refused to cross the Atlantic. Another pension he’d have to worry about when he got home.

He donned a wrapper and opened the draperies in his room. The view from his sixth floor suite saw him looking across at Stanford White’s wretched nightmare called Madison Square Garden, although what he saw of the gardens looked quite lovely. David thought American architects to be utterly distasteful at times.

Looking north up Broadway, he could see the Fifth Avenue Theater and Delmonico’s Restaurant. He wondered briefly if he should spend the seventy-five cents per day the hotel charged for valet service, but declined the idea, deciding to save the money for the carriage he’d have to hire to take him to the Percy home at Park Avenue and 51
^st
Street.

Two pieces of toast and three soft eggs later, David heard a knock on his door.

“It’s Tip,” said a muffled voice from the hall.

David set aside his breakfast tray, belted his wrapper and moved to open the door. He greeted Tip with a handshake. “Tippy, by God, come in,” he exclaimed, genuinely glad to see his future brother-in-law. “Coffee?”

Tip shook his head. “Had my breakie already. Sorry to show up so soon but I had to get away from Father. He’s all over me about going back to school. Wants me to follow you back to England and look at Cambridge.”

“Bloody bad luck, sport. The girls are much prettier on this side of the ocean. And speaking of girls…” He trailed off, unsure of how to bring up the subject of Winnifred Percy.

“Yes, I know. My dear little sister. Listen, Davy, I know that you and Father have talked but is it really necessary to marry her? You only met her once, a couple of years ago. I’m sure she doesn’t even remember you.”

“I take it she doesn’t want this arrangement any more than I do.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that. I’m sure she’ll think you’re rather swell once she gets to know you. You’re a damned fine chap and I told her so. One of the few men I’d let my sister marry.”

“I hate to ask, but why hasn’t she married before now? As I remember, she was a pleasant enough looking girl, for all that she has the fortune of looking nothing like you.”

Tip shrugged. “She’s a penny, I guess. As good as the next girl. But Winn can be…” Tip paused before continuing, “Temperamental.” He shrugged. “Redheads. There ain’t another one in the entire family and, to tell you the truth, some people believe they’re bad luck.”

David poured himself another coffee and sat down. “But not your father’s firm. When I first approached them, all I wanted was to put Knightsbriar on the market. The next thing I knew, I was betrothed to your sister. Your father keeps saying what a
bully
idea it is.”

Tip laughed with him. David tried to make light of the situation, hiding humiliation behind a teasing phrase or a smile. “The aristocracy is in a cocked-up state when families such as mine have to go begging for money and selling our titles.”

The fact was, like Winnifred Percy, he had no choice.

David lit a cigar. He wondered if Tip really understood the enormity of what was happening. It wasn’t just signatures on a piece of paper. Two lives were paying the cost of his late father’s folly. For the sake of his friendship with Tip and the relationship with his future in-laws, David decided to remain as polite and sincere as possible on the surface. At least until the wolf was gone from Knightsbriar’s door.

“I always looked down on those Knickerbocker families buying titles for their daughters and using their Century Club money as bait. Never thought I’d see my own father resort to that.” It was Tip’s turn to be a philosopher. “It sounds rather…promiscuous when you think about it. Almost like pimping one’s own family. I feel for you and for Winn. I wish there were some other way for the both of you.”

“Cheer up, old sport,” David said. “It’s for the best, really. I’ll be able to keep Knightsbriar now. And besides, I think I’m the whore here, selling my title in exchange for a roof over my head.”

He sat down and picked up his coffee cup. But the impact of the fate he’d just voiced left him unable to swallow. Tip was his friend. David was embarrassed to show up begging, feeling like a prime stallion up for stud.
Dammit all to hell!
It really was the bloody lawyer’s fault. Actually, it was his bloody, fucking father’s fault for gaming the Wolshingham name into near bankruptcy. After selling off nonpaying tenant lands, making good on his father’s debts and giving up his tuition to pay off the taxes on Knightsbriar, there was barely enough for passage from Southampton to New York and expenses until he returned home with his bride prize. With only his name, his father’s title and what remained of his late mother’s jewels, David was to be paraded before a genteel lady of New York society to persuade her that she would be happy as his wife. Even though everything he had to offer was in kid boots before her. Well, not everything. Not the leaky roof in the north wing of the estate. Not the overgrown gardens that were once the envy of the London Garden Club. And not the empty stables that once housed the finest bloodstock in the country. All this and less, he had to offer Winnifred Percy.