‘That’s no excuse not to catch up on the stuff we missed out on,’ Max said, and she saw the flutes of champagne and laughed.
A long-stemmed red rose lay across her setting and she glanced up at the waiter with a smile. ‘Does everyone get a rose when they come here?’
‘Only those on their first date,’ the waiter said, and smiled. The man pulled out her chair and Georgia sat and looked around at the restaurant as Max chose the wine for the meal.
The room was long, with several bay windows overlooking the valley below that disappeared in the darkening twilight.
A log fire crackled in a central fireplace and added pleasant warmth without overheating the room. Her throat felt warm but she knew the heat was from something else.
Exposed wooden beams crossed the ceiling with relics from the roaring days of the pioneers, but there was nothing rough about the service or the fine china.
The waiter left after ensuring they were happy, and Max raised his glass to hers in a toast. ‘To a tranquil weekend.’
She’d drink to that. ‘Utopia.’ They clinked the delicate crystal and she sighed blissfully. ‘What a gorgeous place. You’ve obviously been here before.’
Max glanced around and his face softened. ‘My aunt loved this restaurant. I used to come here at least once during my holidays with her.’
There was a note in his voice she’d never heard before. ‘Tell me about your childhood and parents.’
He put his glass down and grimaced. ‘Now, that’s a boring story.’
She frowned at him and he held up his hand. ‘But I did say I’d answer questions.’
He smiled whimsically. ‘My father was a worthy man, an excellent surgeon with very little sense of humour, who retired one month before he died of a heart attack.’
Georgia stretched her hand across the table and touched his in sympathy where his fingers lay against the tablecloth. He looked at her briefly and then looked away.
‘My mother now lives in America with her new husband and apparently is reasonably happy.’
It sounded emotionless and she couldn’t help being disappointed by his distance.
‘Try a little harder, Max,’ she said. Though what did she expect when she was the one creating distance all the time?
He sighed laboriously and then went on. ‘My parents had very little in common with each other, or me, but led a very civilised life together. My brother and I spent a lot of years at boarding school.
‘Fortunately, I spent a lot of my holidays with my mother’s sister, who owned the house in Byron, while Paul stayed home and became even more worthy.’
His face softened and his beautiful mouth curved. ‘My Aunt Beatrice I could talk about for hours.’
‘Please, do,’ she said softly, aching for the boy who had obviously been lost in boarding school and at a family that hadn’t known how to love.
Maybe that was why he had chosen Tayla and had such low expectations of marriage.
‘Beatrice was a widow. Her husband died early in their marriage, which was very considerate of him. I’m sure she was happier doing as she liked. She was an Amazon of a woman who adored bright colours with the black she said she wore for mourning.’
He grinned at the memories. ‘She could put colours together. Black and gold stripes, black and emerald spots, black and hot pink, sometimes all of them at once, and always adorned with lots of beads.’
He shook his head. ‘She’d have sunflowers growing in her garden and they were all over the house in vases. She’d sing the blues in this gravelly voice that would raise gooseflesh on my arms.’
He glanced around the room as if seeing memories from the past. ‘She loved to sculpt and paint and you’ve seen all the luminous stars she glued onto the ceilings in the house at Byron. She loved the stars.’
‘Beatrice sounds wonderful.’ But best of all was the affection she could see for his aunt on Max’s face. He’d loved his aunt. There was hope yet.
‘I adored her. She could be incredibly selfish but that appealed to me too—so much more interesting than worthy. She listened to me and told me she loved my company, when my parents couldn’t wait to send me back to school.’
His face became expressionless. ‘She nursed me when I was sick in my late teens and made me see how much I had to live for.’
She didn’t like the sound of that illness. ‘In what way were you sick, Max?’
‘Hodgkin’s disease. I had it for two years and stayed in Byron with her. She drove me to Brisbane for treatment.’
Georgia knew Hodgkin’s could kill and that it struck down adolescents and young adults, more often young men. ‘You were one of the lucky ones, then?’
‘They say I’m cured.’ He nodded but there was the sadness behind his eyes she’d seen before. Suddenly she realised why he’d never seemed to want children—the radiotherapy would make that unlikely. She didn’t comment because he didn’t, though her heart ached for him. But it all began to make sense.
‘How did your aunt die?’
‘Beatrice? In her sleep. Peacefully. After a big dinner party one night five years ago. She loved company and food—the higher in cholesterol the better.’
He glanced down at the béchamel sauce on his steak and smiled wryly. ‘Enough about me. Try to enjoy your meal without my sob story to put you off.’
Conversation turned desultory and time passed.
With dessert Max had questions of his own. She could tell he was happy to not talk about himself any more. ‘So, did you have a perfect childhood?’
She shrugged, reluctant to lose the mood of warm companionship. ‘My parents were very much in love, and instilled in me that love is worth waiting for. But they died when I was young and an only child.’
‘Who brought you up?’
‘Harry. Tayla’s mother was very like Tayla. She wasn’t a warm woman and Tayla resented my presence in her family.
‘Harry tried to make up for it because he is a kind and decent man, but that only made Tayla worse. Harry’s always been able to see Tayla’s faults and he protected me to some extent. I tried not to be too much of a problem.
‘Tayla’s mother died when I was eighteen and Harry and Tayla are my only relatives, except for my darling Elsa.’
His hand came across the table and squeezed hers for a moment where she held the glass. ‘And your darling husband, Max.’
‘That’s true.’ She smiled at him and then glanced at the grandfather clock against the wall. ‘That was a wonderful dinner. Thank you, Max.’
Max looked at the clock, too. ‘It’s still early. Let’s take a stroll before we go up. There’s a night walk to the glow-worm forest that only takes about half an hour each way. You could check on Elsa first and then join me.’
‘Glow-worms?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and his voice dropped low and portentous, like a 1950s horror film. ‘The larvae of the fungus gnat.’
She burst out laughing. ‘Imagine having that pearl of information at your fingertips.’
‘You have no idea what information I have.’ Max steepled his hands. ‘Hurry and you will learn more.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She saluted and turned for the stairs.
She