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, who was loitering by the gate, gave him a questioning look.


“I…had an idea,” George said, attempting to gather his thoughts. Instinct made him shy from revealing what he’d just heard—what purpose would it serve but to wound Matthew deeper? “But I was mistaken. Come on, let’s get away from here.”


He took Matthew’s arm, and they hastened back down the lane to the village green.


The small children had gone, no doubt whisked away by their parents for an early lunch and a nap. The young men still played at football, their loud cries punctuated by the giggles of the girls who watched them, their bicycles laid flat upon the ground.


Matthew loosed his arm from George’s grip and took Donald’s letter from his coat pocket. “I’m afraid to open this. It was me, I’m sure of it. It was my fault he became desperate.”


Chapter 56