Wounds of the heart are the hardest to heal. Solicitor’s clerk George Johnson has a secret goal when he moves into a London boarding house in the winter of 1920: to find out if his fellow lodger, Matthew Connaught, was the wartime traitor who cost George’s adored older brother Hugh his life. Yet the more he gets to know his quarry, the more George loses sight of his mission -- and his heart. Blessed with boyish good looks and charm in abundance, ad man Matthew is irrepressibly cheerful despite having lost an arm in the Great War -- and soon makes plain his attraction to George. As George’s feelings for Matthew grow, so does his desperation to know the truth about what happened that day in Ypres. Even if bringing all their secrets to light means he’ll lose the man he’s come to love.

To Love a Traitor

Sir Arthur was nodding and seemed not to have noticed Roger’s moment of indecision. “I’m afraid proof may be even thinner on the ground after all this time. But I’ll do my best for you.”


“Thank you, Sir Arthur. It’ll mean a lot to Mabel. And to me.”


“Hmph. Touch of Deuteronomy there, eh, Cottingham?”


Roger flushed. “I—no. That is, Mabel is a dear friend, but I’ve no intentions towards her.”


“Well, well. I shall do what I can. And you’re quite certain about the position?”


“Thank you, but I feel I should take some time to find a profession that will suit me, rather than take the first place offered as I did last time.” Roger gave a twisted smile. “I’m living back at my parents’ house in Buckinghamshire for now, so I don’t suppose I shall starve.” He had some savings and a small amount of money in trust, but it had seemed foolish to exhaust his resources for no reason by keeping on his London apartment. And besides, Mabel was in Buckinghamshire.


Chapter 6