The American Heiress Brides Collection

by Carter, Lisa; Davis, Mary; Dietze, Susanne

  Matt sat down and shuffled through the messages left on his desk. From the brief glance, it looked as if his sources had uncovered something. “I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Your article. On the front page.” John grabbed a paper off a desk nearby and held it out, pointing at an article above the fold. “It made quite a stir around here this afternoon.”

  Matt grabbed it out of John’s hands and glared at it, his blood running cold. Senator Evers Throws His Hat into the Gubernatorial Race. Matt’s article, and yet it wasn’t. Entire conversations had been taken out of context, exhorting Senator Evers’s social conscience, his ideas for reform, while painting Dania and her family with a dark brush. “I didn’t write this.”

  “No sense denying it.” The man slapped Matt on the back. “Everyone in the newsroom knows this is right up your alley.”

  “No.” The longer Matt thought about it, the angrier he felt. “I’m telling you, I didn’t write this, and I don’t have a clue who did.”

  “But isn’t this the story you’ve been working on the last few days?”

  “Yes, but …” Matt glanced over it again. Parts of it he’d written, mainly Dania’s quotes on why she continued to employ child laborers. But everything else—her distaste for the practice, her determination to help the children have a chance at a better life—had been skillfully edited out or worse, attributed to Evers. There was no balance in the piece, slanting heavily in Senator Evers’s favor while making Dania look like a rich society girl without a care for the working poor. If only his readers knew the truth. “Someone used my first draft but left out most of the truth.”

  “That’s a serious accusation, Matt. One I wouldn’t make too lightly.”

  Matt leaned back in his chair and glared at the man. “I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”

  John considered that for a moment. “No, I guess you wouldn’t. But who would write an article and then give you a front-page byline?”

  Somebody on the senator’s payroll who controlled what went into the newspaper. Someone who had access to Matt’s work. He glanced at the managing editor’s closed office door. “Where’s Taylor?”

  John followed his gaze. “He left early this afternoon. Said something about an important dinner he had to attend.”

  It had all been a setup. Evers never planned on hiring him as his press agent. Somehow the man had learned about Matt’s time working in the mill, knew his reputation concerning social injustice, and decided to use it to his advantage. Well, Matt wouldn’t go down without a fight, not where Dania was concerned. He stood up, grabbed his notebook and a sharpened pencil, and stuffed them in his coat pocket. “How would you like to share a front-page byline?”

  John stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What are you talking about?”

  “Taylor is Evers’s new press secretary. He took those notes off my desk and wrote that article.” Matt grabbed his hat and headed for the door. “So are you coming with me?”

  The man scurried to his desk to retrieve his things. “Where are we going?”

  Matt held open the door. “First, we’ve got to stop by Mr. Abernathy’s.”

  “The publisher?”

  Matt nodded. “He needs to know what is going on. Then we’re going to pay a visit to Mr. Taylor and his guests.”

  The next few hours went by in a blur. His meeting with Mr. Abernathy. The confrontation with Evers and Taylor. The evidence he’d collected from his runners proving that the senator along with several mill owners intended to run the Eisons out of business. The prolonged meeting that went into the early hours of this morning, trying to decide the best way to proceed. In the end, the newspaper printed a retraction and an apology to Dania and her family. An article highlighting the improvements Dania had made in her young laborers’ lives would soon follow.

  With the morning paper neatly folded under his arm, Matt jumped out of the carriage the moment it pulled up to the front door of Dania’s hotel, paid the driver, and hurried inside. The lobby was empty, almost somber without the usual hustle and bustle from visitors to the exposition. A reflection of his mood.

  At least they’d be able to find a quiet corner so he could talk to Dania. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say just yet. An apology, certainly, but then what? He bowed his head and closed his eyes. Lord, forgive me for the pain I’ve caused Dania. I made assumptions about her that just weren’t true. Give me the words to make this right with her. Help her to forgive me. And thank You for bringing her into my life. I love her, Lord. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

  With that off his chest, Matt approached the registration desk. A man with a handlebar mustache glanced up and smiled. “May I help you, sir?”

  “I know it’s rather early, but I have a note for Miss Eison in room 326 that I need delivered immediately.” Matt retrieved the note from his pocket and held it out to the man. He’d never struggled with the written word before, but constructing a note to Dania ranked among the most difficult assignments of his life.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Eison is no longer a guest here.”

  Matt blinked. No longer a guest? “Where did she go?”

  The man looked at him with pity in his eyes. “Miss Eison took the six-fifteen train to Tifton last night.”

  Chapter 8

  Dania leaned her head against her office window. Usually the hustle and bustle of the mill floor filled her with a sense of excitement, made her think of all the possibilities for the future, both for her workers and herself. But not today. Today, the clattering of the machinery’s pistons and the tense expression worn by more of her workers only reminded her of her own dismal outlook these last two weeks since she’d fled Atlanta.

  She walked over to her desk, picked up the tattered newspaper, and read Matt’s article again. She shouldn’t have picked up and left the way she did, scurrying away in the night like she had something to feel guilty about. Hearing Matt out, getting his side of the story, would have been the right thing to do. Uncle George’s betrayal had hurt, but what Matt had done had broken her heart.

  Or what Dania had thought he’d done. The newspaper with the retraction and apology had only reached her a few days ago. By then, what anger she’d felt toward Matt had dissipated. After all, he was only doing his job. Maybe, if she’d stayed, heard what he had to say, left on friendly terms, maybe even made plans to see each other … The what-ifs were killing her.

  Dania let out a heavy sigh. Wallowing in this wasn’t helping anyone. No, she needed to focus on the changes she was making, changes brought about because of Matt’s article. Because he’d been right. No matter how she sugarcoated it, the Eisons had made their fortune on the backs of young children.

  Not anymore. Today, the first group of men who’d answered her ad for factory workers would be interviewed. She hoped by the end of the month she’d be able to let the youngest of her workers go, with six months’ pay to help the families adjust to the change. Some of the parents had grumbled when she’d announced the change, but as Matt had predicted in his article, most were adjusting to the idea.

  Matt. She’d tried to put him out of her thoughts and failed, so tight was his grip on her heart. Sewing the children’s new clothes only brought back the memory of their time in Mr. Shonkwiler’s shop; a walk along the lake behind her house, a reminder of their picnic in the park. Dreams of their last few moments together when he’d kissed her so tenderly awoke her in the night, her pillow damp with tears. She’d even avoided reading her Bible, fearful she’d open it to Proverbs 31, knowing she lacked those qualities Matt valued in a wife.

  A knock at the door startled Dania out of her thoughts. “Yes?”

  The door opened, and her sister Gilly poked her head inside. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but you’re needed on the floor.”

  Dania dropped the newspaper on her desk. “Is it the threader again?”

  Gilly nodded. “Peter Ward has been working on it for nearly an h
our now but can’t get it up and running. I think he could use your help.”

  “Tell him I’ll be right there.” Unpinning her braid, she walked over to the closet where she kept a pair of men’s pants and an old shirt for such work.

  Ten minutes later, she was staring at a tangle of thread deep in the inner workings of her main threader. There was no way to reach the knotted mess from the top or sides. The only way to fix it was to climb into the machinery and cut the thread loose.

  “I tried to get in there, Miss Dania, but my hands are too big,” Peter said beside her. “I’m afraid I’ll bend one of the smaller bobbins if I pull on it too hard.”

  “You were right to call me.” Dania gave him a reassuring pat on his shoulder. They couldn’t afford the time or money replacing a bobbin would cost. “Where are the children?”

  “I sent them to lunch. Thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. Get them fed and get them out of your way.”

  The boy had a good head on his shoulders, and at fifteen, he was old enough to keep his job rather than be let go. “Good. Now, let’s see what I can do.”

  “Just be careful, ma’am. It’s awfully tight in there,” the boy warned.

  “I’ll be fine. Remember, I’ve done this before.” Dania smiled slightly as she tucked her braid into the back of her shirt.

  “I’m still going to pray, ma’am.”

  She nodded. No doubt, she’d need it. If this machine went down, she’d have to shut down the entire mill until it could be repaired. No, she couldn’t allow that, not when families depended on the mill for their evening supper, including her own.

  She squeezed herself into a small opening in the undercarriage of the machine then slowly made her way through the maze of wires and piping until she neared the row of bobbins. She inched forward slowly then groaned. Two of the bobbins looked bent from the pressure already placed on them. Hopefully, it was just her angle. She’d have to get a closer look to know for sure. She moved forward.

  Her pant leg caught. Probably a loose screw. Dania yanked as hard as she dared, but the machine wouldn’t let go. Maybe if she backed up. A piece of metal dug into her calf, and she yelped.

  “Are you all right?”

  Matt? Dania jerked her head back too quick and scraped her scalp. But it didn’t matter. Matt was here, staring down at her with such a look of concern, it made her stomach flip. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you.” He gave her a nervous smile then glanced around as if measuring the seriousness of her situation. “Why are you in there?”

  “The threader got jammed, and as I have slender hands, it only made sense …” She trailed off, her mouth suddenly dry as startling blue-green eyes met hers. Dear goodness, how she’d missed the man. Was this what love felt like? As if she’d found the missing part of herself in him?

  “You’re caught in a wire that broke lose.” He leaned toward her, his nimble fingers working on her pant leg until the machine released its hold on her. “There, that should do it.”

  “Thank you.” Dania inched forward.

  “What are you doing?”

  Had he forgotten she had a threader to fix? “I still have a knot to untangle.”

  He gave a slight nod. “Right. Maybe I can help you there, too.”

  Dania stopped for a moment and looked up at him. “How do you plan to do that?” The crooked smile he gave her made her heart flip. “If you cut the knot from below and I work from above, we should have this fixed in half the time.”

  It might work. “You’re forgetting one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your hands are too big to squeeze into the area where the knot is.”

  He gave her another toe-curling grin. “Leave that to me, okay?”

  Dania opened her mouth to protest then slammed it shut. If Matt wanted to help, she wouldn’t stop him. “Thank you.”

  By the time she got into position, Matt had rolled up his sleeves and was working on the stubborn knot with the help of his pocketknife. “When I imagined seeing you again, this particular circumstance never crossed my mind.”

  Her hand shook as she plunked at the threads with the small knife her papa had given her. “You wanted to see me again?”

  “Of course I did.” He sunk the blade in deeper. “I would have been here sooner, but it took me two weeks to work up the nerve.”

  Matt had been nervous about seeing her? If it was possible, she fell a little bit more in love with him. “I’m glad you’re here now.”

  He gave her a slight smile. “Me, too.”

  They worked in silence for the next few minutes, tearing apart the knot until only a few scrapes of thread remained. A machinist would have to be called in to replace the bent bobbins. As Matt plucked the remaining threads, Dania slowly made her way out of the machine, her mind racing in every direction. He said he wanted to see her, but why? Was he writing a follow-up article about her mill? Was he there because he cared for her even just a little bit?

  She did know one thing. She would tell him of the changes she was making with her employees. He needed to know his article had made a difference, at least in her family’s mill.

  “Are you coming out, or do I need to come in there and get you?”

  Really, the man could be so impatient at times, but while she hated to admit it, that was part of his charm. “I can do it myself.”

  She couldn’t be certain, but she thought she heard him mutter, “I have no doubt of it.”

  When she finally stepped free of the machine, Matt’s strong hand at her elbow steadied her as she stood. Dania lifted her hand to push strands of hair out of her face when Matt gently grasped her wrist. With his free hand, he pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against her forehead. “You’re hurt.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t even felt it. “I must have scratched it on my way out. Thank you.”

  Gilly came toward them, her fists knotted in the folds of her skirts. “I’m so sorry, Dania. I told Mr. Langley to wait in your office, but he insisted that it was an emergency.”

  Dania cocked her eyebrow at him. “An emergency, huh?”

  “Patience isn’t exactly my strong suit.”

  “Yes, I know.” But then, that’s what made Matt such a brilliant reporter. Tenacious, her father would say. Persistent. Good qualities in a reporter and a husband.

  She couldn’t help the giddy feeling that started in her stomach. Yes, Matt would make a perfect husband for her.

  But she wasn’t even certain the man cared for her that way. Dania drew in a steadying breath then turned to her sister. “It’s all right, Gilly. Mr. Langley is a friend from Atlanta.”

  Matt slid her a look then turned to face her sister. “A good friend.”

  “Oh, Mr. Langley!” Gilly glanced from one to the other, then giggled as she walked to the door. “It’s about time you showed up.”

  Heat flooded Dania’s face. She would throttle Gilly if she wasn’t such a dear. “I’m sorry. My sister Gilly has a habit of speaking her mind.”

  “A family trait, no doubt.” He stared past her to the massive machine. “This isn’t the first time you’ve crawled around inside of that beast, I gather.”

  Dania shook her head. “And I doubt it will be my last.”

  “Why didn’t your lead boy fix it?” He pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, pausing for a moment as he tenderly examined the sensitive bump she’d earned. “That’s what he’s being paid to do.”

  Words jumbled around in her head until Matt’s hand dropped to his side. She stepped back then, her mind needing some distance to think clearly. “Peter would have gotten stuck if he’d tried to crawl inside, the way that boy has grown these last few months.” She hesitated. “Besides, I’ll have a mechanic working here soon.”

  “Yes, I read your advertisement in the papers.” Matt pulled one rolled-up sleeve down his arm, then the other. “Only men or women fifteen years and older need apply.”

/>   Dania pressed her lips into a tight line. She’d hoped to put her decision into action before they met again. Well, so much for that happening. Best to get this over with so that she could get back to work. “Your article made me realize I couldn’t ignore my conscience just because folks disagreed with me.”

  “Dania, I …,” he started.

  Tears pricked the back of her eyelids, but she refused to cry. “I don’t think you were right in saying I was motivated by guilt. I bought that fabric from Mr. Shonkwiler and arranged for a boot maker to come here because I truly wanted to do what was right for the children.” Dania bowed her head to keep from seeing the disappointment in Matt’s eyes.

  The next moment, she was pulled against him, his arms banded around her as if he never intended to let her go. “Sweetheart, I am so sorry. After I met you, I never thought you were anything but kind and compassionate and everything wonderful.”

  She leaned back to look at him. “But your article …”

  “Wasn’t mine.” He stroked her shoulder blades until she relaxed into him. “Well, some of it was. I made some assumptions about you before I’d even met you. Then the managing editor for the paper stole notes off my desk and edited them to fit his story on Senator Evers’s campaign.”

  “Uncle George intentionally did this?”

  Matt brushed a kiss against her hair. “Evers needed the textile mill owners to back his candidacy for governor, and the only way to do that was to get Eison mills out of your hands.”

  “They thought I was too progressive.”

  He nodded. “The owners feared if their workers found out what you were doing to improve the lives of your employees, they’d riot. The state legislature would have to step in, and the mill owners couldn’t run the risk of having child labor outlawed. With Evers in the governor’s mansion and you put in your place, a reform bill would never come to a vote.”

  Dania reluctantly pulled out of his arms. “I guess they got their way then.”