Konstantin quickly looked away. Someone had told him to defridge the butter, but he hadn’t known what that meant and had therefore completely ignored it.

“Isla, take this out,” said Flora. “Before Innes falls off something and Hamish starts making airplane noises.”

Isla vanished into the dining room. Through the door came a noise that sounded like Douglas revving up. Pam was enjoying every second of this, Flora could tell.

“What are you making?”

“I ’ave no good stock.”

“Well, you’re not making it now! What are you making?”

“I am going to make coq au vin.”

“That takes hours !”

“Ees new kitchen! Ees expected.”

“Absolutely bloody not,” said Flora, almost trembling. “No way. You can’t. Make something—anything—I don’t care. But just make it now.”

She marched to the big fridge and hauled it open.

“Here,” she said. “There’s steak.”

Gaspard looked at it. “So boring,” he said.

Flora was already in the walk-in freezer. She looked up and down all the shelves, shivering in the low temperatures. She was sure she’d seen it in here somewhere . . . somewhere . . . behind the fresh food and the cooking materials . . . Aha!

She returned from the cold storage triumphantly, holding her bag high. “Ahem,” she said.

Gaspard looked at what she was holding. “Ees empossible .”

“Uhm,” said Isla, coming back into the kitchen. “Uhm, Fintan says if we don’t get some food out he’s going to sack everyone.”

This was a complete lie. Konstantin looked up from where he was trying to make his six-foot frame look completely inconspicuous. He saw a look of complicity shoot between Flora and Isla and was impressed. He didn’t think the girl had it in her.

Triumphantly, Flora handed over her freezer find: a large packet of oven chips. Gaspard took it from her as if she were handing him a dead snake to cook.

“Allez,” he said, coldly furious, and struck a match as Isla turned on the grill.

BACK IN THE dining room, Pam seemed to have forgotten her pledge to drink absolutely nothing, as she had been sipping small amounts from a glass and was getting rather giggly, a situation that Flora would have dearly loved to have found herself in, instead of pretending everything was fine when she was in fact incredibly worried.

Everyone dived into the bread in starvation, and it disappeared in minutes. Thankfully the butter didn’t disappoint: it had a smoked garlic flavor that Fintan had developed to seed through it, and it was so delicious Flora could have licked the bowl even as she noticed with a sinking heart that Agot was actually licking the bowl.

And Fintan was calling for more wine, which almost certainly wasn’t going to end well. His eyes had taken on a slightly glassy look, which tended to warn of the arrival of tears. Looking round the room filled with ridiculous, expensive tartan tchotchkes that Colton had insisted on, you felt his presence so strongly and could imagine his loud, cocksure American accent ringing out, his easy laugh, his quick anger and even more surprising kindness. Yes. It was hard.