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

Matthew looked startled, but nodded and followed him up the stairs to his room.


Having closed the door behind them, George wondered what in God’s name he was going to say. But he had to say something, and soon, or they’d both be unconscionably late for work. “Look…About last night. What was said.” And done, but even behind a closed door he shied from mentioning it explicitly.


Matthew took a step forward, then halted. “Go on.”


“I…” George found himself running a hand through his hair. Damn it, now he’d have to get the comb out again. “I’m doing this awfully badly. I just wanted to say you needn’t worry. You—you startled me, that was all. I wasn’t expecting…that.”


Matthew drew in a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh. “Thank you. You’ve no idea what a beastly night I spent worrying about it. I say, you needn’t fear it’ll be repeated. Put it down to…to the relief at getting Marmaduke back safe and sound.” He gave George a shame-faced look. “Still friends, then?”


Chapter 30