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enough.’ Esme’s tone became schoolmarmish. ‘Our potential should always be beyond our reach –’
    â€˜What’s yours?’ Flora interrupted.
    Esme checked and gave a small gasping laugh. ‘It’s not always revealed to us. I said no one knows what they’re capable of until they direct their powers.’
    â€˜You mean like you radiate power, a kind of laser, and hope to pick up a target?’
    â€˜You lost me.’ Ranald was shaking his head. ‘What’s there to get so intense about?’
    â€˜It’s not an aggressive concept.’ Flora’s eyes widened. ‘Or is it?’ she asked of Esme who shook her head, momentarily silenced.
    Coline excused herself and left the room. Flora said sweetly, ‘Would you like to live in Sgoradale, Miss Pink?’
    â€˜No.’ It was too curt. She elucidated. ‘There’s a combination of violence and decadence that grates on me. I would find it an uncomfortable place to spend any length of time.’
    â€˜Violence?’ Ranald repeated. ‘Decadence?’ Flora and Esme were staring – the one delighted, the other angry. Miss Pink realised that she was on her third sherry, and that on an empty stomach. Nevertheless, she was committed.
    â€˜The violence is in the elements,’ she explained, ‘and a form of decadence in the sense that here is a remote community leading a leisurely life without stress. I wouldn’t feel stretched here. That’s one person’s opinion, but you did ask.’
    â€˜You’d be bored,’ Flora said flatly.
    â€˜Our lives aren’t leisurely,’ Esme protested. ‘There’s too much to do. I’m run off my feet. Not that I don’t love every minute of it,’ she added quickly.
    â€˜I’m a man of leisure,’ Ranald admitted, ‘but only because I’m well looked after. I’m a lazy fellow, but I’m never bored. Always something to do, y’know: fishing, shooting and so on. Never idle.’
    â€˜Decadent,’ Flora mused. ‘I like it. We sound like Roman emperors – beautiful and wicked, and into unspeakable perversions.’
    â€˜Now what?’ Coline asked from the doorway. ‘I make one entrance to a suggestion of glue sniffing, now this. Miss Pink has raised the tone of our soirées. Shall we continue this discussion at the table?’
    They rose and trooped out of the drawing room, their silent passage creating the effect of a subdued procession, or at the least, thoughtful.
    â€˜Seriously,’ Flora began when they were seated – all but Esme, who had disappeared. ‘Seriously, doesn’t decadence go with violence?’
    â€˜It bothers me,’ Miss Pink said happily, her appraisal of the silver, the napkins and the range of glasses having suggested that she was about to be served something better than ‘meat and two veg’ even though the cook was on holiday. She gave them an embarrassed smile. ‘You lead such cosy lives in contrast with the elemental forces around you. I couldn’t accept that situation. I’m more at home in a place like the American West, where people fit their environment: wild men in a wild land. Most of them own guns because no system of law can be imposed on a wilderness. I believe those Westerners who tell me that many more crimes occur, even serious ones, than come to light.’
    â€˜That’s true of any country,’ Coline said.
    Esme entered with a tray and went round the table serving plates of smoked salmon.
    â€˜Home-caught,’ Ranald beamed. ‘And Campbell smoked it.’
    But Flora was like a young dog after sticks. She caught the one her mother had thrown. ‘There are unreported crimes in Sgoradale?’ She was incredulous. ‘You just said nothing ever happened here except weather.’
    â€˜Not Sgoradale, but generally speaking. No doubt in Glasgow ... Do you know how many