A Brush with Respectability (The Journals of Una Luath Book 2)

A Historical Adventure of Intrigue, Betrayal and Revenge

In Edinburgh, 1798, Una Laird is determined to leave her criminal past behind and build a respectable future. Now married to her sweetheart Simon, she invests in a whaling ship, hoping to make her fortune through honest business. But when rival merchants resort to sabotage and her best crewmen are seized by a Royal Navy press gang, Una discovers that respectability is not always what it seems.

A daring rescue carries her aboard Persevere and into the dangerous Arctic whaling grounds, where icebergs, treachery and ruthless competition threaten everything she has worked for. Returning to Edinburgh, Una draws on her old skills to uncover corruption and settle scores with those who have crossed her.

Set against the atmospheric backdrop of eighteenth-century Edinburgh, Leith and the Arctic seas, A Brush with Respectability by Helen Susan Swift is a historical adventure filled with maritime intrigue, daring schemes and a resourceful heroine who refuses to be outwitted. This gripping second and concluding novel in The Journals of Una Luath brings Una's remarkable story to a satisfying close.

Discover A Brush with Respectability and follow Una Laird on her final adventure through the dangerous world of eighteenth-century Scotland.

Excerpt from the book

EDINBURGH JANUARY 1798

I woke face down, with congealed blood cementing my cheek to the ground. A bitter wind raised goose pimples on my naked skin as I lay there, unable to move, unwilling to believe what had happened to me.

I screamed, silently and within my tortured head.

Somebody was approaching me. I sensed his presence before I saw the shadow, and I tried to cower, begging for mercy, seeking grace at a graceless face, as the old ballad of Johnny Armstrong says. I could not move. Some unseen force held me down, paralysing my limbs, keeping me a prisoner of my fear.

“Una!” The voice was familiar, intruding into my memory. “Una!”

Who was calling me? A friend or an enemy, the nameless, horrifying thing at the fringe of my mind. I jerked my eyes open, feeling the cold sweat on my body and a man’s hand on my shoulder. I grabbed at the hand and focused on the concerned face that loomed close to mine.

“Simon?” I looked around the familiar room, with the still flickering candle stump on my dressing table. I never slept without a lit candle in the room at night.

“Was it that dream again?” Simon asked.

“Yes,” I replied. I had experienced the same dream, or rather the same recurring memory, ever since Lord Henry Cuthill had repeatedly raped me and thrown me, broken and naked, onto the street in an Edinburgh winter. Lord Henry and Lucy, his equally repulsive wife, were dead and gone, and the world was a cleaner place for their absence, but the memories still troubled me.

I sat up as Simon rose and lit the three candles on the candelabra. The welcome extra light flooded the room, chasing my fears into the shadows outside.

“You are safe now, Una,” Simon said quietly.

I nodded. My heart was still hammering inside my chest, the perspiration drying on my bedclothes and my breathing ragged. “I’m safe now,” I agreed, taking hold of Simon’s hand. It was slim, like the man himself, but stronger than it looked, also like Simon himself, a man who could still surprise me.

The year was 1798, and I had been happily married to Simon for some years. I was an old married woman, or an established member of the community, whichever way one wished to view me.

Absolute nonsense, of course. A handful of years is hardly sufficient time to scratch the surface of any marriage, and in douce and respectable Edinburgh, one needs far more than a few years to be accepted. Behind the bland smiles and polite conversation, the Good Neighbours of Scotland’s capital city had me under constant and critical scrutiny.

I was on trial, on probation, and every move I made and word I said was weighed, balanced and analysed for meaning. The Godly and goodly waited eagerly for any opportunity to pounce on me, an incomer, for any slip in decorum or mistake in manners to reveal my uncouth Country Jock background.