To Tell the Truth by Janet Dailey Page A

the meal. But she was glad to escape the suffocating atmosphere of the living room if only for a few minutes.
    Walking to the filmy lace curtains covering the windows where the gold drapes were drawn back, Andrea stared at her reflection in the night-darkened window. Wearily, she sighed, knowing that in a few minutes her disappearance would be noted and she would have to return.
    "Aren't you enjoying the party?" Tell inquired mockingly.
    Andrea pivoted swiftly. A minute ago she had seen him in the living room talking to Judge Simpson, retired now but still using the title. Quietly, he closed the double doors behind him.
    "I…I was checking on dinner," she said nervously, stepping toward   the table and realigning the already straight silverware.
    "Is that what you're doing in here?" he asked complacently. "I though perhaps you were bored. You hardly spoke to anyone in the other room."
    "Correction. No one spoke to me." Andrea couldn't keep the bitter hurt from escaping. "You see," she explained, lifting her chin proudly, "John's friends have the same low opinion of me that you do."
    "Including my mother?"
    "No, not your mother and one or two others who knew my parents," she admitted. "But the others believe that I played on John's sympathy after my father died and tricked him into marrying me."
    "Of course your father died penniless, didn't he? A series of bad investments just before his death wiped out the family fortune," Tell mocked. "Isn't that the way those sad tales of the beautiful heroine usually start?"
    "There wasn't any money when my father died," Andrea admitted angrily. "I told you all about it before. When I was fifteen, the doctor told us that mother had cancer, There were operations, therapy, drugs, doctor and hospital expenses and a thousand other costly things. Despite everything, she died after nearly three years. Less than a year later, my father's heart simply stopped. But I never regretted one single dime he spent trying to save her."
    "Which is why you married the first wealthy man who came along."
    "John has more to offer than money." Her fingers nervously gripped the backrest of the mahogany dining chair.
    "Such as?" His lip curled in a disbelieving sneer.
    "He's strong and kind and understanding. He genuinely cares about me, about my happiness and well-being."
    "Even to the extent of making you the main beneficiary in his will," Tell added. "That must have been a moment of real triumph for you."
    Andrea let out her breath in one quick sigh and wearily bowed her head. "Why am I wasting my time? You don't want to listen. You don't want me to explain," she said dully.
    "I'm curious about something, Andrea. What does John get out of all this? The privilege of having you as his beautiful paid companion?" he taunted, impassively meeting her flashing look of tears and temper. "There can be very little else, with you sleeping upstairs and John down."
    She swung at his mocking face and missed as he dodged her open palm. One wrist was caught in a steel grip, then the other, cutting off the circulation to her hands. Andrea struggled in vain to be free.
    "You're contemptible!" she hissed at last, no longer fighting his hold. "I don't care what you think of me! Not anymore. Not if you can made such vile accusations against John. He's paralyzed, as you very well know. He didn't marry me to obtain some base satisfaction…and that you think he did disgusts me!"
    A muscle twitched along Tells jaw, sternly clenched and unyielding. "When you love someone, Andrea—" his gaze narrowed blackly "—there is incredible joy in just knowing her head rests on the pillow next to yours. You couldn't possibly know the feeling I'm trying to describe. You're much too concerned about your own selfish, material desires to see the beauty and fulfillment in that."
    Gasping back a sob of pain, Andrea knew it was something she wished for every night, but Tell wouldn't believe her.
    "Excuse me, Andrea." Mrs. Davison's hesitant voice