Robert felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. “What?”
“My father,” Ellie said with a nervous swallow. “He woke up and found Victoria packing her bags. Then he tied her up. He said you would ruin her.”
“Oh, my God.” Robert couldn't breathe.
“It was awful. Papa was in such a rage. I've never seen him like that. I wanted to help her. I really did. I covered her up with her blankets so she wouldn't catch a chill.”
Robert thought of her lying in bed. He'd been so furious with her, and all the time she'd been bound hand and foot. He suddenly felt intensely ill.
Ellie continued her story. “But he tied me up, too. I think he knew that I would have freed her so she could go to you. As it was, she sneaked out of the house and ran to Castleford Manor just as soon as she was free. When she returned, her skin was all scratched from running through the woods.”
Robert looked away, his mouth moving but unable to form words.
“She never forgave him, you know,” Ellie said. Her shoulders lifted into a sad shrug. “I have made my peace with my father. I don't think what he did was right, but we have reached an understanding of sorts. But Victoria…”
“Tell me, Ellie,” Robert urged.
“She never returned home. We haven't seen her in seven years.”
He turned to her, his blue eyes intense. “I didn't know, Ellie. I swear it.”
“We were very surprised when we learned you'd left the district,” she said flatly. “I thought Victoria might perish of a broken heart.”
“I didn't know,” he repeated.
“She thought you'd been planning to ravish her, and that when you didn't succeed you grew bored and left.” Ellie's gaze dropped to the floor. “We didn't know what else to think. It was what my father had predicted all along.”
“No,” Robert whispered. “No. I loved her.”
“Why did you leave, then?”
“My father had threatened to cut me off. When she didn't meet me that night, I assumed she'd decided I wasn't worth it anymore.” He felt ashamed just saying the words. As if Victoria would have ever cared about such a thing. He stood suddenly, feeling so off balance that he had to hold on to the end of a table for a moment to steady himself.
“Would you like a spot of tea?” Ellie asked as she rose. “You really don't look at all well.”
“Ellie,” he said, his voice growing resolute for the first time during their conversation, “I haven't been well for seven years. If you'll excuse me.”
He left without another word, and in a great hurry.
Ellie had no doubt where he was going.
“What do you mean you turned her out?” “Without a reference,” Lady Hollingwood said proudly.
Robert took a deep breath, aware that for the first time in his life he was sorely tempted to punch a woman in the face. “You let—” He stopped and cleared his throat, needing the time to get his temper under control. “You dismissed a gently bred woman without a character? Where do you expect her to go?”
“I can assure you that is none of my concern. I certainly did not want that trollop near my son, and it would have been unconscionable of me to give her a reference so that she might corrupt other young children with her unsavory influence.”
“It would behoove you not to call my future countess a trollop, Lady Hollingwood,” Robert said tightly.
“Your future countess?” Lady Hollingwood's words came out in a panicked rush. “Miss Lyndon?”
“Indeed.” Robert had long ago perfected the art of the glacial stare, and he speared Lady Hollingwood with one of his best.
“But-but you cannot marry her!”
“Is that so?”
“Eversleigh told me that she all but threw herself at him.”
“Eversleigh is an ass.”
Lady Hollingwood stiffened at his foul language. “Lord Macclesfield, I must ask you—”
He cut her off. “Where is she?”
“I certainly do not know.”
Robert advanced on her, his eyes cold and hard. “You have no idea? Not a single thought in your head?”
“She, ah, she might have contacted the employment agency she used when I hired her.”
“Ah, now we're getting somewhere. I knew you were not completely useless.”
Lady Hollingwood swallowed uncomfortably. “I have the information right here. Let me copy it down for you.”
Robert nodded curtly and crossed his arms. He'd learned to use his size to intimidate, and right then he wanted nothing more than to intimidate the hell out of Lady Hollingwood. She scurried across the room and fished a sheet of paper from a desk. With shaking hands she copied an address down for him.