Monday, September 21, 2015

To Love a Traitor excerpt by JL Merrow




According to JL Merrow in To Love a Traitor, wounds of the heart take the longest to heal.

When solicitor’s clerk George Johnson moves into a rented London room in the winter of 1920, it’s with a secret goal: to find out if his fellow lodger, Matthew Connaught, is the wartime traitor who cost George’s adored older brother his life.

Yet as he gets to know Matthew—an irrepressibly cheerful ad man whose missing arm hasn’t dimmed his smile—George begins to lose sight of his mission.

As Matthew’s advances become ever harder to resist, George tries to convince himself his brother’s death was just the luck of the draw, and to forget he’s hiding a secret of his own - his true identity - and an act of conscience that shamed his family.

But as their mutual attraction grows, so does George’s desperation to know the truth about what happened that day in Ypres. If only to prove Matthew innocent - even if it means losing the man he’s come to love.

[Warning: Contains larks in the snow, stiff upper lips, shadows of the Great War, and one man working undercover while another tries to lure him under the covers. LOL]



    To Love a Traitor
    SamhainNow (September 15, 2015)
ISBN:  9781619229921

Excerpt:

December, 1920; two young men with rooms in the same lodging-house

Later that week the weather was still bitterly cold. Nevertheless, George found himself staying up late with his books, reading up on tort by candlelight with a blanket wrapped around him for warmth. It was extraordinary how fascinating the English legal system could be, built as it was in the main upon individual cases.

But even George’s interest in larrikins (who or whatever they might be) throwing squibs into crowds couldn’t sustain him long past midnight, given that he’d been up at six that morning and would have to do the same on the morrow. Yawning, he closed his books and shed his clothes, shivering as the chilly air struck his bare flesh. As he hastily pulled on his pyjamas, he was startled to hear someone speaking. The words were indistinct, but George was almost certain they came from Matthew’s room. Quietly opening the door, he could see no one there, which rather settled the matter—unless they were on the street? A quick glance out of the window confirmed that the street was empty, all good citizens presently tucked up in their beds, and the bad ones gone for richer pickings than could be had in Allen Street. But who on earth could Matthew be talking to at this time of night?

Perhaps he always talked in his sleep, and George had simply never been awake to hear him before? Listening with guilty avidity, George realised it sounded as though Matthew were distressed. A nightmare, then, poor fellow. George had had his share of those.

He was certain Matthew wouldn’t thank him for poking his nose in—he’d probably be mortified to know that his night-time woes were audible to others. Having snuffed his candle and climbed into bed, George stuck his head under his pillow and tried to ignore the noises from next door—but a vigorous thump on the wall right by his ear, followed by the unmistakeable sound of a sob was too much for him to endure. Matthew might hate him for it, but George just couldn’t leave the man in such distress. Flinging off the blankets, he pulled on his dressing gown and padded to Matthew’s door in his slippers.

Uncertain whether to knock, George stood on the landing for a moment, irresolute. A further cry from within prompted him to pull himself together and open the door.

He hadn’t thought to re-light his candle, but like his own, Matthew’s room looked out on the front of the house, and a faint glow from the streetlamps filtered through the curtains. It was enough to make out Matthew’s form, writhing in the bedclothes which had wrapped themselves around him like a shroud. “Matthew,” George whispered, laying a hand on his shoulder. Matthew started violently. “It’s all right,” George reassured him. “It’s just a dream.”

George started to unwind the sheets from the sweating form. It seemed to help—as Matthew’s limbs were freed, the thrashing eased. “Hush,” George kept repeating. “It’s all right. Just a bad dream.”

“George?” Matthew’s voice was hoarse. “George, what are you doing here?”

“I heard you cry out. I think you had a nightmare.”

“God, George… I was back there in the dugout, when that wretched shell landed and it collapsed… Oh Lord—you don’t want to hear about this. I’m sorry, George. Just being a bit of an idiot. Sorry to have woken you.”

“You didn’t wake me—I’ve only just finished studying. Now, will you be all right, or would you like me to stay for a while?”

“I… Would you mind, awfully, staying for just a little while? I’m being a wretched nuisance, I know.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” George said a little more sharply than he meant to. “And is there anything else you need?” he asked in a softer tone.

“Do you think you could light the candle? It’s on the bedside table, and the matches are in the drawer.”

Feeling more than seeing his way, George managed to locate the matches and lit one with a blinding flare that left him blinking for a moment before he could find the candle. Once lit, the candle showed him Matthew’s pale face, his hair plastered to his forehead in little curls. He was sitting up, his right pyjama sleeve flopping forlornly where he hadn’t bothered to pin it up. George’s chest felt curiously tight at the sight of him. “It must be a wretched place to go back to in your dreams,” he said.

“Do you know, it’s the only time I remember anything about it at all? In my dreams. If it even is a memory and not something my beastly mind has cooked up all by itself.”

“Does it happen often?” George asked before he could stop himself.

“Lord, no. Hardly at all, these days. I must have had too much cheese for supper or something,” Matthew said with a ghost of a grin. “Or possibly Sherlock Holmes is a little too racy for bedtime reading for one of my advanced years.”

“Advanced years?” George asked in a light tone. “You can’t be older than twenty-five.”

“I can, you know. I’m twenty-five and six—no, seven months, now.” Matthew’s smile seemed much more genuine, and his colour was returning.

George felt horribly torn and confused. It was such an intimate situation—he in his dressing gown, and Matthew in bed not six inches away from him. George knew he should be thinking of a way to use the situation to his advantage, to find out more about Matthew’s time in the trenches, but all he felt was a fierce yearning to close the gap between them, to hold his friend tight—and did he only imagine that Matthew’s lips had parted, his eyes half-closed, ready to welcome his embrace…?

He couldn’t do it. If he was mistaken, then the best that could happen would be Matthew never speaking to him again. He’d have failed utterly in his task—and in any case, it would be the act of a scoundrel to take such a step whilst concealing so much from Matthew. But if he told the truth—the whole truth, so help him God—it would be the end of everything. A wave of grief washing over him for what he could never have, George stood. “Well, you’ll be all right now, won’t you? I’d best get to bed—work in the morning, you know how it is.”



He didn’t look behind him as he left the room. If Matthew was watching him go with an air of disappointment, it would do him no good to see it—and if he had only imagined that Matthew returned his feelings, he was too much of a coward to want to know.

*   *   *




 JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea.  She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again.  Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.

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