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

“That’s the fellow. Went on to lose both his legs in Dover Strait—lucky to get out alive, but the damn fool would insist on going to sea and doing his bit. As if he wasn’t doing a perfectly good job at the Admiralty. At any rate, he wrote to me before all that happened. Early that year, I believe it was. Said he knew of a man with excellent German, if I was able to use such a thing. And, as it happened, I was.” Sir Arthur paused. “He said you were the brother of a good friend, and he could vouch for you being a good man despite your principles.”


Roger stared. “But…Pip Wharton and I hardly spoke two words to each other in our lives. Why on earth would he seek to do me a good turn? I can’t understand it.”


Chapter 12