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

George followed his friend almost giddily. They must have made a fine picture, marching along at a pace more suited to city streets in the driving rain than to a country lane on a balmy afternoon, for an elderly lady cutting holly in her garden turned to stare as they passed.


“Nothing like a good, brisk walk for the constitution, I always find,” Matthew said cheerily, with a lift of his hat to the lady.


Fortunately, they made it far enough away before laughter overtook them.


“Perhaps we should have run after all,” George said as they finally, finallyreached the gates of the rectory.


“Perhaps we should. Oh Lord, do you suppose we’ll make it upstairs before anyone sees us and ropes us into a game of charades?”


“I hope so. I’m not in a fit state to be seen.”


“Yes, you are. And I should like to see as much of you as possible,” Matthew added in a whisper that did nothing at all to help George’s composure as they crept through the hall.


Chapter 47