Free LoveBetrayed by Samantha Kane Page A

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damn. After the battle last year, Almeida is a crumbling collection of rubble.
Why on earth anyone wants it is beyond me.”
    “Losing Almeida would be a huge blow to Napoleon, and you
know it. With Almeida, we liberate Portugal from the French. They would be on
the retreat. We only need to hold them off at Fuentes de Oñoro for a few days,”
Daniel said. “They haven’t the supplies to last any longer than that.”
    “Good.” They stood in silence watching the bustle in the
camp for a minute or two. When Tarrant spoke again, it was with quiet
reflection. “When I spoke to some of them, thought about being with them…I felt
something again. I liked it. I liked feeling again. Is that part of it, too?”
    Daniel just nodded, mute in his anguish. He loved Harry. He
did. But it was the kind of love that couldn’t live outside this time and this
place. The irony was vicious and cruel. This place he hated so much, this war
that was slowly killing him inside, had given him the most precious gift he’d
ever received. He already felt the loss of Harry and what they had like a
gaping wound in his chest. That loss would defeat him when nothing else the war
had thrown at him could. He’d been a fool to begin this, and now he was a fool
because he wouldn’t end it. He couldn’t. How could he survive without Harry?
Without feeling again, without forgetting? Is this how James felt now that
Daniel no longer sought his company?
    “I’m glad.” Tarrant looked away from the camp and faced
Daniel. “We deserve it,” he said softly. “I deserve it. I play my role here and
I do as I’m told. James has me trained quite well. And I hate myself for all of
it. I want them to see something in me I don’t see anymore. When I’m with them,
I hate myself less.”
    Daniel was speechless again. He wanted to tell Tarrant that
he understood. That he’d felt the same way, before Harry. But the words stuck
in his throat because to say it meant admitting that when Harry left he’d be
back in that place, and there wouldn’t be a way to fix it again, because only
Harry could. The incredible stupidity of what he’d done to himself that fateful
night in the woods struck him and had him reeling.
    “Tarrant,” Daniel said, not sure what response was expected
of him. But the other man was already moving out of earshot, disappearing into
the camp. They were ghosts haunting the same ground, he and Tarrant, leading
the innocent astray.
    Daniel shook off his melancholy thoughts. But the shadow of
them persisted, dogging his footsteps as he slipped through the trees around
the camp like a wraith. He was haunted by the reality that Harry might not
leave here. Daniel would not lose him to England, but to death. And that would
be a loss he’d never recover from. He was a besotted idiot, and surely disaster
awaited the outcome of this unfortunate love.

Chapter Ten
    Fuentes de Oñoro, Spain
    May 4, 1811
     
    Harry needed to see Daniel. He hadn’t seen him before they’d
marched for Fuentes de Oñoro. Simon had stopped by for just a moment to say
James had sent Daniel out to reconnoiter the area prior to their arrival. He’d
made a point of saying Daniel had sent him. It was something, he supposed.
Daniel had known he’d wonder and worry. But he needed to see him, after the
fighting yesterday. He hadn’t been in the thick of it, but he’d heard it, seen
the casualties and the wounded.
    Christ, he hated the fighting.
    There was a futility to it here. Why this little, ancient
city, with its narrow lanes and rock walls? What in the bloody hell were they
fighting to keep this little piece of ground for? And yet, when the battle had
raged back and forth through the streets of the town Harry had been infected by
the lust for battle, by the cries of the soldiers and the screams of the horses
ringing in the air as they fought for each little inch of worthless ground.
    He rubbed his forehead just above his right eye. It was
throbbing. He needed sleep.