LoveBetrayed by Samantha Kane

“I’m going to
try to find out how many men the French will send. They held back today in the
village, though they had higher casualties. That may mean they’ll throw the
bulk of their forces at us. The officers in charge know this as well, but they
are determined to cut off all roads to Almeida. It’s stretching our forces too
thin here on the flank.”
    “I don’t think your information will change what is to come,
Daniel,” Harry said with an eerie sense of premonition again. “The stage is
set.”
    “I have to try,” Daniel whispered harshly. “Dammit, Harry, I
have to try.” He cupped Harry’s cheek. “Promise me you won’t do anything
stupid. You damn officers are always doing something grossly heroic and idiotic
in these situations. Be a coward. Run.”
    Harry laughed, he couldn’t help himself. “That is the worst
advice I’ve ever heard,” he chastised Daniel. “‘Cowards die a thousand
deaths’,” he quoted, finally understanding Shakespeare’s meaning.
    “Damn Julius Caesar and Shakespeare too,” Daniel said with
venom. “They are not here.” He grabbed Harry’s face between both hands, pulling
Harry down until their foreheads touched. “I could not live if you died
tomorrow, knowing I might have stopped it.”
    “You cannot stop it,” Harry said with a fatalism he’d never
felt before. “You never could. It’s out of our hands.” He tenderly rested his
hands on Daniel’s shoulders. “You must know I meant what I said. I love you.”
    “Don’t make deathbed confessions yet,” Daniel whispered. He
ran his thumbs across Harry’s cheekbones as if he was memorizing his face.
“Tell me again tomorrow night.”
    He kissed Harry with a desperation that Harry understood and
met with his own. He wrapped his arms around Daniel and held him tightly,
trying to imprint the feel of his body against him. He wanted to remember this
tomorrow if death came to take him.
    Daniel broke the kiss with a jerk of his head and stumbled
back a step, letting go of Harry. “I have to go,” he said with a catch in his
voice. “Promise me, Harry. Promise me you won’t do anything foolish.”
    “I can’t,” Harry said honestly. “Foolishness sits too easily
on my shoulders, you know that. I can only promise to try my damndest to
survive.”
    “This entire affair is foolish,” Daniel said, walking
backward away from Harry. “It has been from the start. What were we thinking,
Harry? What have we done to ourselves?”
    Harry shook his head, at a loss for words. Daniel was right.
It was supremely foolish to fall in love at war. “I didn’t mean to,” he
whispered. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
    “We never mean to do it,” Daniel said. “And yet it happens
just the same.” And with those words he faded into the night.
    He hadn’t told Harry he loved him. Harry tried not to let
that bother him as he trudged through the brush back to camp.
    * * * * *
    Harry paused to take a breath, gasping as he spun his horse
around. The French cavalry was all around them. Damn them for leaving the
British line too thin here on the flank. The Seventh Division was cut off. He
deflected a French dragoon’s sword, knocking the man out of his saddle to the
ground. Spurring his horse forward, he engaged another French cavalry officer
attempting to break through the infantry line. The Frenchman spun away and
immediately Harry felt a hard blow against his back. It knocked the wind out of
him and he tottered precariously in his saddle. Then a horse slammed into him
from the side and, still reeling from the blow to his back, he tumbled to the
ground. The sounds of the battle—the shouts and cries of wounded men, the
scream of horses, the sickening slice of blades on flesh—faded, as if he had
cotton batting in his ears. He choked on the dust and his eyes watered and he
felt his first real moment of panic since they’d charged the French line. The
boom of artillery had him shaking his head to