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

“Well, yes. The men were marvellous—wouldn’t stop digging until they found me—but even then it’d have been too late if I hadn’t been over in the corner at the time. I was pinning up a postcard Mother had sent me from the Isle of Wight, would you believe it? Trying to brighten the old place up a bit. Well, being in the corner, the framework protected me a little and gave me a pocket of air to breathe. Poor old Wilkins wasn’t so lucky—they got to him first, as it happened, but he’d already suffocated in the mud, poor chap.” Despite the fire, Matthew shivered.


Marmaduke gave a yowl of displeasure and vacated Matthew’s lap for a more stable resting place upon the hearthrug.


Chapter 27