Free To Tell the Truth by Janet Dailey Page B

is." There was a faraway look in Rosemary Collins's eyes as if she were silently reminiscing about a bygone time. "It's a bit separated from the other bedrooms and he always used to like that. If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I'm sure he would like to stay in it."
    Andrea's breathing became shallow and uneven as a warm pink flowed into her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Collins," she murmured self-consciously. "That's…in use. It's, er, my room."
    "Your room? I…" The startled voice stopped, but Andrea completed the thought to herself. Rosemary Collins had probably thought that she shared the master bedroom suite downstairs with John. "It doesn't matter," the woman said and shrugged quickly. "Men are seldom as sentimental about such things as women are."
    "So you have the tower room?" Tell's voice came mockingly from the connecting door between the two bedrooms.
    "Yes," Andrea breathed, her gaze bouncing away from his. "If you'll excuse me—" the request was made to his mother "—I'll have to get these flowers in some water. Lunch will be in about an hour. Please make yourself at home."
    Her dignified retreat carried her to the kitchen. There, her legs nearly dissolved as a long-postponed reaction set in, but she wasn't allowed time to adjust to Tell's arrival and whatever implications it might contain or the unforeseen difficulties that might accompany it.
    Mrs. Davison's magic wand required a helping hand, and she deputized Andrea to supply it as she bustled about the kitchen to come up with the last-minute items to supplement the original menu for three to extend it to seven—since Adam had received his hoped-for invitation to join them. When the task was successfully accomplished, Andrea barely had time to slip upstairs to her room and change before lunch was served.
    John supervised the seating arrangements, placing his two female guests on either side of him at the head of the table. That left Tell and Adam to sit at Andrea's end of the table. Mrs. Davison chose not to eat with them, insisting that she would rather have her meal by herself after they had lunched when she could eat in peace.
    Andrea wished she could have had the same alternative. She would rather have eaten alone than endure Tell's cold indifference to her presence. He pointedly avoided addressing any comment directly to her, cutting her out of his conversation with Adam as if she weren't there. To try to carry on polite conversation with the women at the other end of the table was impossible, so Andrea sat through the meal in uncomfortable silence. It was a silence that no one seemed to notice, except perhaps Tell, who cuttingly enforced it.
    Gladly, she insisted at the end of the meal that the others take their coffee on the cobblestoned veranda while she helped Mrs. Davison clear the lunch dishes. She dallied in the kitchen until the housekeeper finally shooed her out. There weren't any more excuses for not joining the others.
    But how could she treat Tell as a stranger when her every nerve end screamed with the knowledge of his touch, his kiss, his embrace and the love they had shared so briefly? When Andrea thought of the way it had been, and that they might never kiss again, it seemed like a cruel game of pretense.
    For a numbed moment she stood in the corridor, dredging her inner resources for some reserve ofcourage and stamina. Then she heard male footsteps descending the stairs—firm deliberate movements that had to belong to Tell. A fleeting second later she knew she had to speak to him alone and this was her prime opportunity.
    As she reached the end of the corridor, Tell was at the bottom of the open staircase turning toward the continuing hallway that would lead him to the rear of the house and the veranda entrance.
    "Tell?" Her unconsciously pleading call halted him and he slowly turned around to face her, his leanly chiseled face aristocratically cold and arrogantly hard.
    Now that Andrea had his attention without anyone listening, she