TuesdayNights by Linda Rae Sande Read Free Book Online

“Just one. Two, if I behave,” she added with an arched eyebrow. She took a sip and held the bubbling liquid on her tongue, almost closing her eyes as she swallowed.
    Michael watched Olivia as she took her first sip and wondered at her words. “You’re a better flirt than your sister,” he stated before taking a long draught of his own glass.
    Blinking in surprise, Olivia had to pull her glass away from her lips just as she was about to take another sip. “I wasn’t aware I was,” she replied, her rounded eyes coming up to meet his.
    Michael regarded her for a second too long. “Which is why you’re so much better at it than your sister,” he countered with a grin. His attention was suddenly drawn to something – or someone – behind her. “My apologies,” he said suddenly. “I must take my leave of you.” Before she could ask if something was amiss, Michael had bowed and was moving quickly in the direction of the card room.
    Daring a glance behind her, Olivia caught a glimpse of her sister making her way through the crowd in her direction.
    “Where is he?” Eloisa asked as she reached Olivia, her breaths coming in short gasps, as if she’d been running.
    Olivia blinked. “He, who?” she replied before taking another sip of her champagne. The stuff was rather good, and she was sure her knees were buzzing. She thought if she had another, she would no longer care how tightly her dancing slippers pinched her feet.
    “Mr. Cunningham!” Eloisa responded with a hint of annoyance. “I was hoping I could claim my second dance with him.”
    Shrugging, Olivia regarded her sister before giving the room a quick glance. “Well, he was around here a few moments ago,” she offered before giving her sister another shrug. “But, I know if I were him, I’d be in the card room,” she said as she placed her empty champagne glass on a footman’s tray. “I’m off to stand with a potted palm,” she added before she surreptitiously took another glass of champagne from the table.
    A sense of dread settled over Harold Waterford as he watched Michael Cunningham bow to his younger daughter and then move quickly toward the card room. He was watching when the young man approached Olivia, apparently with a request to dance despite the fact that it was the supper dance and was almost certainly a waltz. Did the viscount’s son deliberately flaunt the rules? Or was he unaware of how inappropriate it was for a sixteen-year-old to be dancing the waltz? At least their turn on the dance floor went largely unnoticed, though, and was quite brief. But Harold was sure he’d seen something between the two, some hint that Michael might not have his daughter’s best interests at heart or that Olivia was a willing participant in what could have been a scandalous dance.
    Well, he would have to speak to his new business partner. Not scold him, exactly. But warn him off a bit.
    Trouble was, he rather liked the idea of his youngest daughter with the second son of Mark Cunningham. The viscount was well regarded in Horsham, as well as in Parliament. His wife, an elegant woman, would gladly claim their only daughter was a duchess, but only if she were asked. And she would only acknowledge her oldest son if she was in the same room with him. A rake and a poor gambler, Marcus Cunningham would drain the family accounts when or if he ever inherited the viscountcy.
    Michael Cunningham, on the other hand, was a bit of a conundrum. Unlike any other son of a peer, he had apparently decided he had to work to earn a living, convinced his father’s viscountcy would be left bankrupt by his older brother. He seemed to genuinely care about Shipley’s lack of jobs, knowing on the one hand it was due to the mechanization that made farming more efficient, but thinking on other that mechanization would require even more laborers to see to the larger harvest. He was never mentioned in the scandal rags, and the only disparaging comment Harold had ever heard