Read Online No Price Too High by Jo Ann Ferguson - Free Book Online

going.”
    â€œThat is no answer.” Her eyes strained to watch his finger as it moved along her neck. It gently followed her jaw and traced her chin. She gasped when he gripped her chin, tilting it back sharply. Too many watched them, but she could not pull her gaze from his eyes. They were devoid of compassion. She stiffened her shoulders against the shiver aching up her back. Had the sparse kindness he had shown her been as much a pretense as their alliance?
    â€œYou should not be outside the tent dressed like this,” he said in a voice as cool as his gaze.
    â€œYou were the one to undress me to this state.” Her face became as heated as when she rode across the desert plain. “If you will return my surcoat to me, we—”
    â€œYou know that is not what I mean.”
    Stepping closer, he overwhelmed her with shoulders that appeared even broader beneath his bleached cloak. When she started to reply, he shouted something she could not understand.
    The old woman rushed forward with more of the black wool.
    Melisande frowned. “Gabriel, I—”
    â€œWill do as I wish you to.”
    She shook her head. “I vowed to obey you only as long as our alliance lasted.”
    â€œBut it never existed and you obeyed me.” He whipped the material around her. Before she could shrug it off, his hands clamped on her shoulders. Heat swept through her from beneath his fingers at the same time something flickered in his eyes. The same warmth that taunted her? That frightening thought turned the fire to ice.
    Swiftly he wrapped the shorter section around her head and secured the end across her face. The thick scent of wool suffocated her, and she jerked it away.
    â€œI do not wish to wear this ridiculous costume.” She focused her fury at her unwanted reaction on him.
    â€œYou will wear it.” His clipped words warned that he was as unsettled as she. With fury or with the unwanted desire? “Do not argue with me on this, for this argument you will not win, Melisande.”
    She drew the wool up over her face, glad to let it hide her expression. She hoped it would hide that she was a fool to crave the touch of this man who had betrayed her.
    Gabriel held out his hand in an unuttered order. She placed hers on his hard palm and followed him as he walked toward his horse. She looked about and scowled again when she saw that the gray horse she had ridden now had bags stacked on its back.
    â€œIf we are riding, I shall need my horse.”
    He put his hand on his horse’s bridle. “You fret about the wrong things, milady. This is Shetan , whose name means devil in Frankish. He’s fleet enough to evade the evil one, even when he carries both of us.”
    â€œYou expect me to ride with you?” She backed away, although she had no place to go. “I can assure you that I’m quite capable of managing my own mount, even in these rough hills.”
    â€œI know you ride very well, Melisande.” He stepped easily into the intricately stitched saddle and again held out his hand. “And that is the reason you will ride with me. We wouldn’t want you to become lost in these unfamiliar hills.”
    â€œI never get lost.”
    â€œI have no wish to prove you wrong, milady.”
    She ignored the hand proffered in front of her face. Scanning the hilltop, she knew she had no allies here. The old woman had disappeared into the shimmering waves of heat bubbling up from the ground. Gabriel’s men were mounting their own horses. If she ran … Gabriel might kill her if she did not obey him.
    Slowly she clasped his wrist with both hands. Many times she had mounted like this when she had ridden with her brother. When Gabriel tugged her to sit across his lap, she gasped.
    When she started to push herself off his legs, his arm tightened around her waist, surrounding her with his strength. Coldly, she said, “It would be more comfortable for me to ride