Her glare sliced sharper than a guillotine. “You ingrate.” She slapped his arm and leaped to her feet. “You’ll pay for this. Your father will pay for this. There will be ice inside Mount Vesuvius before you take charge of the newspaper. You’ll be hawking penny copies on the street corner by the time my father is done with you.”
He snorted. “Thank goodness my future isn’t dependent upon your father.” But what about his father’s future? He back stepped toward the door. No telling if she was done attacking. “I pray that when you do marry, it won’t be for the sake of the paper.” His father was going to kill him. But he wouldn’t commit the rest of his life to a woman he could no longer tolerate. His boots beat against the marble hallway floor as he headed for the front door.
Olivia’s voice struck him from behind. “I heard you stopped taking your medicine. Maybe that’s your problem.”
He clinched his hands and pivoted. “The problem is that I finally came to my senses.”
That evening, Ben stepped into his family’s parlor. Evelyn sat curled up in a chair reading while his mother sat at the desk going over the family accounts, a snood holding her hair at the base of her bent neck. They looked up, faces expectant.
“How did it go?” Mother asked.
Ben loosened his collar. “If anyone calls at our door from the Edmondson household for the next couple of days, tell them Father isn’t well enough for visitors. As a matter of fact, you’d best say that to anyone who calls from the paper.”
His mother clunked her pencil down. “So you didn’t make amends with her?”
Evelyn’s gaze percolated with questions.
“There will be no reconciliation.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and ambled over to the sofa.
His mother pinched the bridge of her nose and lowered her head.
“Olivia is too much of a high-society person for Benjie.” Evelyn snapped Elizabeth Gaskill’sNorth and Southshut. “A frontier girl is much more his style.”
“I haven’t been Benjie for a couple of decades, Evie.” He scolded and nudged her feet from the second cushion.
“Neither of you has any business sense.” His mother lifted her head and pressed her palms flat against the desktop. “TheSentinelmeans the world to your father. His sweat and brains built the paper, along with Edmondson’s and Thorson’s money. And if you don’t handle matters, Benjamin, he’ll fight for control of the paper with his last breath. And the way he’s going, that might just happen.”
“Mother, he doesn’t need to fight for anything at the moment.” Provided Mr. Edmondson had more business sense than to cater to his daughter’s whims. “I’m working with Thorson for now. When Father is well, he can step back in and take the lead from Thorson.”
“That is only temporary, Benjamin. It’ll take months for your father to fully regain his strength. And even then…” She leaned forward, elbows on the desk, pinning him with her gaze. “He has pains in his chest and back. He doesn’t have the strength of a forty-year-old anymore.”
“Heisfifty-eight.” Evelyn curled her arms around her book.
“This conversation is between me and your brother.” His mother pointed a finger her way before turning back to Ben. “I’m worried about your father. The doctors are guessing rheumatism. But I’m not convinced.”
Ben’s frown traveled all the way down to his heart. “Would it be so terrible if he worked out a compromise where he shared the management with Thorson?”
“Young Thorson?” His mother’s eyebrows rose to her hairline. “A man twenty-five years his junior? Share the editorship with someone who criticized Lincoln? Your father would be out of his sick bed tomorrow at such a thought.”
“You’d have me marry a woman I can no longer even tolerate?”
“You are the one who courted her. Your father and I never asked you to.”
“But you were delighted when I did.”
“Yes, of course. Olivia is a charming young woman, an accomplished pianist, with a caring heart. She visits the soldiers’ hospitals?—”
“She also thinks quite a bit of herself and likes to be doted on by every bachelor under forty.” Evelyn twirled a wave of her hair around her finger.
“The point, young lady and young man”—Mother’s chair scraped against the floor as she stood—“is that you, Benjamin, started the trouble, and you’re refusing to keep your commitment. You’ve offended the Edmondsons, and now you must shoulder the responsibility. You must fight for the managing editorship of the paper. You owe it to your father.” She drew herself up to full height and crossed her arms. “If you care anything for your father or have any gratitude for everything we have done for you over the years, you’ll give up any foolish notion you have of going back to Texas.”
He dipped is gaze to the floor as the crushing weight of her words landed on his shoulders.
Evelyn nudged her toe beneath his knee, a show of support from their childhood days. “I could help with the paper, Mother. I love to write. And I can edit and organize?—”
“You are a girl.” Mother slammed the ledger down like a gavel. “And the day is coming for your brother to be the man of the family.”
Ben pinched his chin as his mother marched out of the room.
