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 flung himself on his bed with an exaggerated sigh. “Lord! I never thought I’d miss the peace and quiet of Mrs. Mac’s. I’m quite certain my family wasn’t so loud this time last year.”


“I hope it wasn’t because they were suffering with that wretched flu.”


“No, thank God, we were spared that. Even though Father would insist upon visiting those in the parish who weren’t so lucky. That was a beastly time, especially coming so soon after the war. I remember there was a nasty little man who used to go down to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park and spout a lot of rot about it being God’s vengeance upon us for giving women the vote, would you believe it? But clearly the Almighty has a sense of humour, as the last I heard, the wretch had come down with the flu himself and quite lost his voice.”


George chuckled. “I’d say he was lucky he didn’t find himself facing an angry crowd of suffragettes hurling insults or worse.”


Chapter 42