"I appear to have missed much excitement," Beatrice greets her cousin. "I thought I saw a storm approaching the villa, but it proved to be Count Claudio in a most bedraggled state. I wondered if there had been rain but all the thunder was in his face."
Hero settles on the balcony perch beside Beatrice. "He was kind enough to retrieve my ribbon when it was blown into the pond, but lost his footing and fell."
"How gallant. And what favour did you bestow in return for this noble feat?"
Hero picks at her skirt, looking out to the horizon. "I gave my thanks."
"Your thanks," Beatrice grins catlike. "Ooh, alas, poor Claudio, cold from more than his swim."
Hero pokes her arm. "You are not as amusing as you think you are."
"My, you are morose. You have been spending too much time with John the Bastard."
"Do not call him that."
Beatrice's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh ho, the mouse has claws. I thought you held the term in dear affection with how much you cherish your soulmark."
Hero tenses, hunching in on herself. "I have heard it spoken with enough poison this day. I will not have it from you as well."
Beatrice places a hand on her shoulder. "Perhaps you should better heed those warnings. You are so full of goodness, love. You believe everyone else must be as well. But that is not so. You consider those marks in a rose light but they are the stripes of a wasp, the speckles on a snake. He is dangerous, pet. And a liar. You should not place so much faith in him."
Hero jerks to her feet, whirling on her. "You are a fine one to talk. I saw Benedick's arm. Tell me, Lady Disdain, why you continue to rebuke him when you must recognise your own jibes upon your skin."
Beatrice stiffens and Hero can almost hear the metal clang, her visor falling into place. "I know not what you speak."
Her voice comes out clipped and forbidding. It only incenses Hero further.
"What? I protest, all-knowing Beatrice is at a loss? Who is the liar now?"
A muscle ticks in Beatrice's jaw and she rises. "I am honest enough not to burden Signior Benedick or myself with a romantic foolishness neither of us want. He has no more desire for a wife than I do a husband. Neither of us wish to be chained — least of all to each other. Therefore, leave the matter alone. It is not your affair."
Beatrice stalks past her, shoulders tense, and Hero feels a pang of sympathy. She gentles her voice, "Are you so certain of Benedick's feelings?"
Beatrice snorts, standing still. "He leaves little doubt."
"And you leave little room for love." Hero shuffles towards her motionless cousin. "You have such a large heart, Beatrice. Yet you have closed it to all but your kin. You besiege Signior Benedick with barbs, but if you show him some softness, you may find a devotion as fierce as your own. You deserve the world, Beatrice. Why will you not let it in?
Beatrice is silent. Outside, there are the shouts of men and women going about their business, someone humming down below, two dogs bark at one another, the wind ruffling the trees.
When Beatrice speaks her voice is the prick of a needle. "You cradle these naïve fantasies about fate and soulmates, but that is a dream you have spun yourself to better swallow the lie that happiness is found through the slights on your skin." She turns on Hero. "Have you no mind of your own? Are you so weak-willed you cannot even love for yourself? You must be told who as well?" She lifts her chin. "No marks will decide my fate. I am bound to no man."
With this pronouncement, she strides from Hero, her head high and her golden curls bouncing.
Hero presses a hand to her breast and slumps onto the bench. That did not go well.
:-x-:
John strides through the garden, no aim in mind. Or so he tells himself. Hearing a familiar voice, he halts.
"...I should not have pushed her… but she should not have been so unkind…"
John follows the voice, rounding the hedge. Hero kneels beside a bed of lilies.
"...I am not weak-willed… this is my choice… he is my choice…" She does not appear to notice his approach, murmuring to the flowers. "...you would like him… perhaps not at first… but there is more to him than he shows… I know there is…"
She sighs and cuts several of the stems, laying them in her arms. She rises, white skirts swishing around her calves. When she sees him standing there, she freezes.
"John…" she lurches into a curtsey, "My lord."
"Lady Hero," his mouth curves around the name, "Pardon my interruption."
"Oh, no, you are not interrupting."
He arches his brows and glances at the lilies. When he returns his gaze to her face he sees her cheeks are flushed.
"I was… merely spe-speaking to the… the uhh… flowers."
He relaxes his posture, the corners of his mouth twitching. "Then, this once, I may prove the better conversationalist."
Her eyes light, smile unfurling. "Do you compete? I did not think you were one for flowered speeches, my lord."
"I am not." He turns his head. "If that is your desire, you must look elsewhere."
She steps forward. "I would take an honest word over a sweet one."
A wry reply coils on his tongue, but he looks at her kind face, and swallows it. "With you, lady, all honest words must be sweet."
She preens, mirth twinkling in her gaze. "Now you flatter me. But an honest person would call me strange for conversing with plants."
John thinks she is strange for a number of reasons but he will not tell her so. "I would prefer the plants to many of the people I have been obliged to converse with over the years."
Hero's smile quirks, even as she casts it to the ground, cradling the lilies in her arms. "I speak to the flowers, but it is my mother I address my words to." Her eyes meet his. "Is not that strange?"
The words catch in his chest and he remembers that she too knows the loss of a mother.
"No," the sound draws from deep within his throat, "Not so strange."
Her eyes widen, and she stares at him as no one has before. Then she smiles and something cracks within him, ice melting under sun.
"I am to the mausoleum, to lay these flowers at my mother's grave…" she trails off and he does not think he imagines the question in her eyes.
"...may I walk with you?" He murmurs, half hoping she won't hear.
But she brightens and nods. "Please."
So John follows at her side. Despite his earlier remark, he remains silent, his mouth cloyed with sap. It chafes to think he is no better conversationalist than a plant, but if Hero is displeased, it does not show in her contented expression.
She leads him to the stone building where the family rest their dead. His flesh prickles at the nearness to death. She pauses before the locked gates, offering one of the lilies to him. He looks at it, perplexed, and her smile becomes uncertain.
"For your own."
His fingers curl around the stem, brushing her hand. He might flatter himself with the inhale of her breath, but her fingers linger a beat longer before she pulls them back.
Hero sinks to the floor, spreading the lilies, and clasping her hands in prayer, her eyes close. She mumbles under her breath, a soft susurrus. There is something almost sacrilegious about watching her in this private moment, lost in prayer. But John is a blasphemer by birth; he admires those delicate features, the fan of her lashes, the glow of her cheeks, the curve of her chin, the cream of her neck, the ripple of sable curls which his fingers itch to touch.
He understands why Claudio is so enchanted, but not how he was convinced to give her up. Even the will of the Prince could not make John stand down. But that is another mark where he and Claudio differ.
Hero's lashes flutter. Not wanting to be caught, John drops to a kneel, the lily stem clenched in his hand. He is not a religious man. There is little to be said between God and him. John is a bastard. He was destined for the fire pits long before he added treason to his crimes.
Nevertheless, Hero's behaviour has John thinking of his own mother. He usually avoids those memories, like a thorn-briar through his chest. She would snort at the idea of him communing with God on her behalf and that is enough to loosen his tongue, offering up a few words to the woman who departed this world long ago, of whose choices he still bears the brunt.
What would she make of the man her darling boy has become? Of the frost in the eyes which once shined? Of the blood on those hands that she used to wash clean?
Would she laugh, accusing him of getting into mischief again? Would she shun him like the rest of the world?
Or brush back his hair once more, a sad look about her, like she always knew this would be his fate?
"John…" the wisp of fingertips across his shoulders.
His lids snap open, meeting Hero's concerned gaze. His eyes sting and he lurches from her, turning his back.
"John…" The wild animal inside him snarls, baring bloodied fangs. He spins, intent to gorge out her throat and — freezes at her soft expression. "Thank you for accompanying me."
The ire snuffs out of him, a hollow shame settling in his stomach. He gives a curt nod.
Hero hesitates, asking with care, "You lost your mother as well?"
John grinds his jaw, unable to hold her gaze, so kind and gentle. Normally, he would savage anyone who dared mention his mother. But those were taunts. John does not have to be standing outside a tomb to recognise Hero's inquiry comes from a shared loss.
He nods again and the thought flashes through his mind: What would his mother think of Hero?
"She must have been beautiful…"
The comment makes him pause. "How do you conclude that?"
His mother was beautiful. She bewitched a prince, after all. But he does not see how Hero would know. No one at court who spoke of his mother did so kindly and there are no portraits of her.
When he looks at Hero, she appears flustered, fiddling with the ribbon around her wrist. "Only that — only that you must — must share a likeness."
His spine straightens. Distantly, he can hear his mother cackling. From anyone else he would suspect mockery, but not from Hero.
"I... do share her likeness…" he answers slowly, "But also much of my father's."
Too much to refute.
"I am told I resemble my father greatly."
He can see from her shyness, she too is uncertain of the complement.
"No worse for it."
He cringes at the poor words but Hero smiles. "Come, this is too melancholy a place for conversation. I come here when my heart is heavy but no longer is it so."
John follows her from the mausoleum, leaving the dead behind. His strides are languid, keeping pace with hers.
"Was... your heart heavy?"
He would not appreciate the question himself, but he is a hypocrite, and Hero is far more open than he given how she answers without hesitation.
"I quarrelled with Beatrice."
His eyebrows jump. Beatrice has made a proud show of her wit, clashing with anyone foolish enough to indulge her (usually Benedick), but it is plain she adores her cousin. John wonders what could spur the lioness to turn on the lamb.
"I am sorry."
(How rare those words leave his lips.)
Hero gives a rueful smile, "I vexed her and pried where I was unwelcome."
"You disagreed with her. Good."
Her gaze whips to his own. John holds it.
"Whatever you said, I am certain it was fair. You would not have spoken in spite."
The corners of her lips rise. "You give me much credit. I am not all virtue."
"No? I struggle to believe that."
"Ah, but then I must be a liar and, thus, sir, my argument is won." She smiles, gliding in sideways steps as she faces him.
He huffs, amused. "I concede. I understand now why your cousin was vexed for she must have been discomfited to face a wit that could challenge her own."
Hero stalls. "I am no wit."
"You are not loud about it. But noise is no mark of intelligence."
She shakes her head, mouth twisting wryly. "You are generous. But I know next to Beatrice I seem… dim."
John frowns. "Hero, look at me. I do not give out false praise. Your mind is equal to hers, but you are more… sympathetic."
She shuffles her feet. "I am meek, you mean."
"You are bolder than you are credited. A meek individual would not approach a renowned villain."
Hero's face ripples, a touch of sadness in the sweep of her lashes. "That is their loss."
They stare at one another. Her curls flutter in the breeze and he has the curious urge to catch one and wind it round his finger. She wets her lips; John tracks the motion, leaning close. She sways towards him, eyelids slipping shut.
Laughter from nearby shatters the stillness and John slams back to their surroundings, out in the open garden. He clears his throat and retreats to a proper distance.
"I am certain you and Beatrice will soon reconcile. If my brother can forgive me…"
Somehow, he manages these words without their usual bitter taint. Hero is looking at him and he is conscious of what she sees. Does she know the ink black hatred that lurks in him, feeds of his rancour, the beast which prowls under his skin?
"Thank you, John," she says at last, impossibly tender.
Pins and needles shiver up his arms.
Despite her denial, John knows Hero has more virtue than anyone he has met. He had not believed such genuine goodness existed in the world, but there she goes, surprising him again, robbing him of breath.
He should keep his distance. He does not understand her fixation with him, but he knows the closer she becomes, the greater the risk of him doing her harm. Fire allures but burns to touch, whether intended or not. Her reputation could be injured from mere association with the bastard traitor. So why can he not leave her alone?
There comes the call for supper. Hero gives him a shy look and he is offering her his arm before he can think better. She smiles, her warmth spreading through him in sunlight plumes, and, all at once, John knows he is doomed.
:-x-:
Beatrice does not speak to Hero at supper, instead conversing loudly with Don Pedro, who looks pleased if slightly bemused. She ignores Benedick's attempts to goad her, even when he is shouting across the table. The discomfort this causes is mediated by Antonio bellowing youthful anecdotes that have Leonato hiding his face and their guests chuckling.
Hero sneaks glances at John and, more often than not, finds he is looking back. Her heart skips a beat as they share a smile. She remembers, insides fizzing, how he praised her wit and called her bold, and makes an effort to engage in the discussion.
Claudio and Benedick are ribbed over their dips in the pond. Benedick takes it with better humour than Claudio, more accustomed to being the butt of the joke; but though both are polite, it is plain neither are as amused as their audience.
Antonio reminisces about his own days paddling in the lake with his brother before moving on to his nieces'. Hero flushes and ducks her head when he reveals how she used to catch the frogs and kiss their crowns, expecting them to turn into princes. When she dares to look up, John is smirking at her, his eyes glittering, and her stomach swoops.
"Will you walk with me, lady?"
The meal has ended and the guests have begun to shuffle from the room. Hero looks up in surprise at Don Pedro's request.
"The evening is pleasant and best spent in the company of one equally so."
For a moment, Hero forgets her manners and glances around. Her father is pretending not to eavesdrop, while he gushes to Ursula about something. Beatrice does not look at her as she strides from the room, Benedick hastening after. John is watching her, even as Borachio crows in his ear. Hero feels the heat of his gaze, two simmering coals.
There is only one answer for a prince.
She smiles, "I would be delighted, my lord."
Don Pedro grins and leads her outside.