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

As so often, Matthew appeared to read his friend’s mind. “Father was the only son, so by rights he shouldn’t have gone into the Church at all. But the old man has a genuine vocation for it, so my grandfather relented in the end. Father’s always encouraged my brothers and me to make our own way in the world and not rely upon any prospective inheritance. He says he intends to live to a ripe old age and keep us all waiting in any case. I hope he does,” Matthew added in a quieter tone, his hand on George’s shoulder. “I should hate to lose him.”


Chapter 36