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 turned to watch them like a pointer indicating his master’s kill.


“No, you may notgo and join them,” George said lightly.


“Spoilsport. I’ll get you playing football yet, you see if I don’t.” Matthew took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Lord, that’s better. I always feel my lungs are full up with smuts after travelling by rail. And isn’t it quiet here? You’d think the motor car had never been invented.”


“You know, if we’d had one of those we could have got here in half the time.”


Matthew grinned. “When I’m made partner, I’ll buy one and take you for a drive to test the theory.”


“No, when I’mmade partner, I’ll buy one myself.”


“Even better—we could race one another.”


George laughed. “And there goes the quiet and fresh air of all the villages we pass through.”


“Sacrifices must be made in the name of progress.”


Chapter 54