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

George swallowed. Not that he hadn’t taken Sheila’s warning seriously, but he hadn’t really thought through what it would do to Mabel if anything were to happen to him. Although God knew he’d been terrified of losing her, when she’d been struck down with the flu last year. But then again, in his defence, Sheila and Sir Arthur had, between them, given him very little time for reflection.


Chapter 19