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

“Do you think you could light the candle? It’s on the bedside table, and the matches are in the drawer.”


Feeling more than seeing his way, George managed to locate the matches and lit one with a blinding flare that left him blinking for a moment before he could find the candle. Once lit, the candle showed Matthew’s pale face, his hair plastered to his forehead in little curls. He was sitting up, his right pyjama sleeve flopping forlornly where he hadn’t bothered to pin it up. George’s chest felt curiously tight at the sight of him. “It must be a wretched place to go back to in your dreams,” he said.


“Do you know, it’s the only time I remember anything about it at all? In my dreams. If it even isa memory and not something my beastly mind has cooked up all by itself.”


“Does it happen often?” George asked before he could stop himself.


Chapter 24