Whatever his doubts about staying for the harvest are, the look of consternation that crosses Leonato's face when he hears the news brings John a small burst of satisfaction. Everyone else expresses delight at his decision, making friendly conversation with him throughout lunch, while Leonato sits quietly, frowning into his soup.
After lunch, John excuses himself, asking for use of the telephone. He is directed to a small antechamber at the back of the house. There, he dials the number for Margaret's apartment and waits to be connected.
"John?" His sister's voice crackles into life on the other end. "Hey, I'm glad you called."
"Hey Peg."
There's a pause on the line. Peg is their code word, he only calls her that when he needs to communicate there is more to a situation than he can express.
When Margaret speaks again it is with a note of caution. "How is Sacramento?"
"I've not reached Sacramento. I'm spending a few extra days in Napa."
"Napa?" Her voice is bewildered. "Napa Valley? What are you doing there? Sleeping?"
He is careful with his answer, conscious of anyone overhearing. "I'll call you when I get to Sacramento."
He can hear Margaret frowning, the wrinkle in her brow. "John… what's going on?"
There is a muffled voice from her side. He straightens, "Who is that?"
"No one… the radio."
"Is Borachio there?"
"So what if he is? It's my home, I can have whoever I want over."
John pinches his brow. It is bad enough that Borachio keeps sniffing around his sister, let alone that she encourages him.
"Tell me why you're acting strange. Are you in trouble?"
He represses a groan. "Look Marg—Peg. We're fine—"
"We!"
"I'm — I'm fine. Don't worry."
"Uhuh." She doesn't sound convinced, dammit. "You've never been forthcoming at the best of times, but now you're being downright evasive. What's going on, John?"
"I bet it's a woman," Borachio crows from the other end and John's hand tightens on the receiver.
"As if!" Margaret cackles. Then, after a pause when he doesn't respond, "John…? Is that true? Have you met someone?"
He grinds his teeth. "Yes."
"WHAT!" At his sister's shrill cry he pulls the phone from his ear. "WHO? Tell me everything."
"...No."
"JOHN!"
Over his sister's screeching, he thinks he hears the creak of floorboards.
"Of course I'll give her your love," he replies for any potential eavesdroppers.
"Who — my love? John! Is this a wind up?"
"Glad you're doing well. That's great about the job."
"I swear, I will come over to Napa and strangle you with the phone chord!"
"You're sweet to say so." He thinks whoever he heard has moved on. "Hey, since he's there, can you put Borachio on the line?"
She scoffs. "So you can threaten him? Why should I when you won't answer my questions?"
"Because…" he lowers his voice, losing all false cheer, "...I have good reason."
Margaret is silent for a beat, then in a begrudging tone, "Fine. But I want an explanation later."
"I promise."
Static sounds as Margaret fumbles the phone over to Borachio. "Hey Johnny Boy. I'm here to fix a leaking pipe."
John grimaces, not wanting to explore that euphemism. "Spare me. Margaret's a grown woman and can make her own choices — however questionable."
Borachio hums his agreement.
John drops his voice, "I'd like you to do something for me."
Borachio must pick up on something in his tone. Though his voice never loses its levity, it does gain a note of gravitas; another side to the man switching on. "What's that?"
John has no doubt his sister is lingering beside Borachio, listening in, and hopes the other man will be able to deflect her suspicions. He takes a breath. "Professor Roussillon at the University of San Francisco. He teaches literature. I want you to find any dirt you can on him, anything that would hurt."
Borachio clicks his tongue and John knows he is processing this information, running it over in his mind. He might act the buffoon, but Borachio is a shrewd man, shrewder than John. While he has stepped away from that life, he knows Borachio still has a few crooked connections (hell, he is the crooked connection). It is part of the reason John wanted him to stay away from Margaret. It is why he needs him now.
Borachio's experience is apparent in how he doesn't ask questions. "Sure, I can do that."
John would like to leave it there but he needs to know, "What will it cost me?"
"We're friends, Johnny," Borachio chuckles like it was never even a question. "You'll just have to buy me drinks for the next few decades."
He restrains an eye-roll. "Fine." He looks over at the clock on the wall. "I should go."
"Righto, look after yourself."
Before John can respond, Margaret is there again. "Keep out of trouble, you hear me! Or I'll box your ears in!"
His mouth twitches in a smile. "Sure, Peg."
"Oh, piss off."
He hears the clack of the phone as she hangs-up and sets the receiver back in its cradle, ignoring the blurred pang of warmth in his chest.
(Over, in San Francisco, Margaret looks at Borachio expectantly. He grins, "It's definitely a woman.")
John returns down the corridor. As he turns a corner, he hears raised voices coming from a room, the door ajar.
"Why couldn't you have chosen someone we knew?" Leonato demands. "Why not Claudio? He is a good lad, from a respectable family whom we know. Unlike this stranger you have brought into our home."
"There is nothing between Claudio and I," Hero retorts. "That was yours and Alberto's dream. John is my choice. I know you're upset that I didn't gain your approval first but he is the husband I chose. Why can't you give him a chance?"
"I don't need to give him a chance. I know his sort."
John breathes in through his nose, hands balling into fists.
"You don't know anything about him!"
"Do you?"
He makes to go, but Hero's response stills him, her voice strong with passion. "I know he is a good man, an honourable man. I know… I know I can depend on him. I know he loves his sister and that he respects women… that he would intervene on a stranger's behalf. I know that he is patient and… he listens. He thinks there is value in my degree and takes an interest in my thoughts. I know that despite your rudeness and abominable accusations, he has been polite and helped us. He stayed up through the night to save our grapes and is choosing the harvest over his job. So I do know him. I know he deserves a lot better than how you treat him."
John reels from the force of her defence, a trembling through him. He is too shocked to notice her footsteps until she stalks out the door and almost collides with him. Her mouth parts as she sees him, stopping short. He inclines his head in the direction he came and she gives a silent nod. They sneak through the house, to the back door, and escape outside.
Hero pulls on John's sleeve, leading him from the house out into the rows. They move along the path, heading towards the treeline.
She releases him, gesturing to the woods. "Do you want to get away for a while?"
His mouth curves with amusement. "What happened to no retreat?"
"This is a respite, not a retreat."
"Ah, in which case… lead on."
They walk to the fence that divides the vineyard from the woods and Hero unlatches a gate. Sunlight pours through the forest; shadows cast where the branches are thickest and the tree trunks huddle. Leaves crunch under foot as they follow the winding path; the canopy above is strewn with reds and ambers amongst shades of yellow and green. Birds flit overhead, squirrels bounding from branch-to-branch, insects buzz through the air, wings gleaming in the light. There is so much life around them. John's chest tightens at the sight. The trees sing with the chitter of creatures and the chorus of birds, but there are no human voices except for their own. It is just him and Hero.
He exhales, shoulders sinking as he relaxes his guard.
"How much did you hear?"
His gaze jumps to Hero, taking a moment to realise what she is referring to. "Not a thing." She shoots him a penetrating look and he drops the ruse. "May I ask about Claudio?"
She looks away, combing her hair behind her ear. "Claudio and I grew up together. Our parents are friends. I think our fathers hoped something would bloom between us… but it never did."
"Never?"
She glances back at him, a bashful smile toys on her lips. "I may have… been sweet on him once… when I was a girl. He was a few years older and seemed so much more confident because of it. I thought him the most perfect boy in the world." Sadness flickers on her face, a glimpse of the girl she used to be before it disappears, like drawing a curtain. Now her smile is wry, "But I grew out of that… and Claudio never paid any attention to me, always chasing after other girls. We're friends, though, I can't claim we have seen much of each other these last oh… eight or nine years. He set off to make his fortune before I started university and then… the war. I'm glad he is well."
John flips her words over like coins, his hands shoved in his trouser pockets. He remembers how Claudio stared at Hero when he first saw her and all their meetings since. "He is paying attention now."
She laughs. "That's just his father. Claudio has no interest in me and I have none in him."
John thinks she is underestimating her effect. Claudio looked at her like a man seeing a woman for the first time. It must have been a shock to find his childhood friend all grown-up and married to another man. John has no sympathy for the imbecile if he overlooked Hero until it was too late. Except it is not too late; their marriage is a sham and John can't help but wonder if he is intruding on someone else's love story. Childhood friends turned lovers, sounds like something out of a fairytale, and what is Le Nuvole but a dream-come-true.
He swallows against the bitter note that pollutes his tongue. "If we hadn't met, would he have helped you?"
Hero stops walking, turning to him, her eyes wide. "Um… I… I never considered it."
"You didn't know he would be here."
"No… I… I… would not have told him." She looks at the ground, arms folding around her stomach. "Claudio… if you think my father is old-fashioned, Alberto is worse. Claudio doesn't share all his values but… he never would have lied to his father, to my father."
John's frown deepens. He recalls the image of Hero as he found her on the road, eyes wet with despair, pale from fear. If Claudio could see her like that, frightened and vulnerable, and still betray her then that's all John needed to know about him.
"Not someone you can depend on then."
Hero's eyes cut to him and then she is turning her head, craning it towards the sky. Sunlight fractures her face. "I cannot fault him for being honest. It was my misjudgement that put me in this position." She drops her chin with a self-deprecating smile. "I sure know how to pick 'em, huh."
He steps towards her. "Don't beat yourself up, men are awful."
She looks at him. "You're not awful."
"I can be… I have been."
"Have you ever discarded a woman pregnant with your child?"
"No. But that's not the standard you should be aspiring to."
"I don't have much hope of aspiring to anything anymore…" She hugs herself. Before John can unpick that remark she speaks again. "What about yourself? Um… do you… have someone waiting for you?"
"Waiting for me?"
She tucks a loose curl behind her ear. "I… um… like a… a sweetheart, I mean."
The question bowls into him, startling a chuckle. "I'd be a pretty bad boyfriend if I'd been pretending to be your husband all this time and never mentioned a girl at home."
Her hand bunches in her hair, pulling on it with a soft murmur, "It's surprising what people don't mention…"
His brow furrows. "There's no one waiting on me."
She hums, regarding him through her lashes. "That's hard to believe."
His mouth curves with the cocking of his head. "Is it?"
Her face pinkens. "It — It is."
He casts his gaze to the acres of trees stretching beyond his sight. "I've been at war and before that… travelling for work. No time for anything more than… a night."
He regrets this last admission, not wanting to highlight to Hero his scatterings of flings across the years. But she looks at him with intrigue not judgement.
"There was no one you wanted to go back to?"
He thinks about the women whose beds he sought comfort in; they had both known theirs was a fleeting flirtation, that something more was impossible with the relentless march of war. John had never mourned that. Even before the war that is how his few relationships had gone. It is not that those women weren't intelligent, beautiful, or interesting enough to entice him. The fault is in him. He can satisfy them for a night but he knows he is not fit for a long-term commitment. He never has been. He only sleeps with women on the same page as him; makes no promises, breaks no hearts.
"It was never that serious."
He shifts, scratches his jaw, feels the stubble growing. Hero's eyes are intent upon him and he struggles to hold her gaze long enough to discern what she is thinking.
"I'm sorry," she blurts. "I'm prying."
He shakes his head. "It's… uh… fine. With everything I know about you, you're entitled to some prying."
She smiles, fingers curling at her neck. "We've discovered so much about each other in such a short time… It doesn't feel like we only met yesterday."
"It doesn't," he agrees.
It is incredible to think… when he woke the previous morning he didn't know Hero. Perhaps he never woke and she is a dream. Except his cynical mind could never invent someone as pure and sweet as her…
"I suppose…" her voice is soft and saccharine, "...after this… we will never see each other again."
A sharpened pair of pincers close around his heart. Of course, that is what needs to happen for their ruse to work. John has to disappear from Hero's life forever. In a country as big as the United States he should be able to avoid running into anyone who would link him to her. If he just keeps from Napa Valley and the surrounding area for the rest of his life.
"Who knows," he murmurs, despite knowing the best thing for them both is to never meet again. "Maybe if you come back to San Francisco, we might bump into each other and I'll buy you a drink."
He knows that she knows what he is suggesting is impossible, but she smiles all the same and the air around him warms. "I would like that."
They walk on through the woods, Hero pointing out various things; where they used to pick mushrooms, where she and her cousins built a den, the bog where she got stuck and her uncle had to carry her home without her shoes. The odd leaf drifts down around them signalling an end to the idyllic summer and the start of the fall.
Their wanderings bring them to a tire, tied to a tree on a long rope, hanging over a shallow ditch. Hero grabs it, face lighting with glee. "I remember this swing."
John eyes the rope and the branch it is attached to dubiously. "Is it safe?"
She grins. "Let's find out."
He catches the rope before she can jump on. "I'll go first. If anyone's breaking their neck falling from this thing it's me."
She rolls her eyes, amused. "Gee, don't hog all the fun."
John inspects the tire-swing, assessing how best to climb on, never having been on one before. He botches his first two attempts, injuring only his pride as Hero sniggers behind him. He succeeds in leaping onto the tire on his third attempt and then he is swinging across the ditch, the air rushing past him as the woods blur around him.
A laugh startles out of his chest and he is careening back in time to when he was a boy on the rickety park swing set, eager to see how far he could soar.
He swings high, back-and-forth as Hero cheers on the sidelines. Too soon, the pendulum loses momentum, slowing until it is spinning more than it swings. He jumps from the tire onto solid ground and grins at Hero.
"Yeah," he pushes his fringe out of his face, "seems sturdy enough."
"As long as you haven't compromised it with your weight," she teases, stepping towards the swing.
John holds it steady as she climbs on. "You're the one carrying another person. Ready?"
Her hands tighten around the rope. "Ready."
"Alright. One. Two—" he pushes her before he gets to three.
She flies across the ditch, shrieking. When she swings back, he pushes her again, her shrieks transform into laughter, golden in John's chest.
They go on like this for five more turns before Hero calls for him to stop, gasping between laughter that she is getting dizzy. The next time she swings back, John catches the rope, heels skidding in the dirt as he hauls her to a stop.
"You alright?"
She slides from the swing and staggers into him, catching herself on his shoulder. "Yes, thanks."
He lets go of the rope, hand rising to cup her waist. He feels the smile burrow into his cheek as he gazes down at her, hair tousled and beaming. She is beautiful.
The thought strikes like an electric shock and he recoils. She gives him a curious look but he covers it with a grin, gesturing back towards the path unexplored. "What other adventures are there?"
Nothing tops the tire swing, but it is pleasant touring through the woods with Hero, chatting about simple things. She shares stories of the mischief she got into first as a girl attending a private boarding school with her cousin and then as a student sharing a house with other young women. In exchange, John tells a few tales of his own, amusing happenings from his time at war, between battles when they weren't soldiers but men getting up to stupid shit. She never mentions her professor and John doesn't talk about the horrors. All the light and none of the shadow.
He watches as she speaks, animate hands and a luminous smile. "—so Matron is expounding to us the privilege of our education and the importance of not letting young men distract us from our studies, all the while Romeo is dangling outside the window behind her, legs thrashing as he clings to the ivy — we had it from Jules later that he had climbed up the trellis to visit her only for it to break beneath him as they were about to kiss. We are all doing everything we can to keep Matron from turning round and seeing him, I believe Ophelia started reciting poetry!"
He smiles as he listens, mouth curling like a flame, warmth kindling in his chest. She is radiant, shining with a light that comes from within. It chafes that he did not meet her somewhere else, under different circumstances. But if he had, would he still be here to know her as he does now? To feel more himself with her than he has anyone since his mother's death? No promises, he has to remind himself, no broken hearts. This has the same ending as all his other affairs — with him leaving.
The path leads them in a circle back to the vineyard fence and Hero's recountings come to an end, voice trailing off. Her silence is at odds with her animation from a few seconds ago.
His hand falls upon the gate, opening it for her. "Once more unto the breach?"
She glides through the gate. "I know that line from somewhere… who is it?"
"You know… I can't remember."
They are back in the rows, the shadows long, the sky fanned in an apricot hue as the sun begins its descent into the hills. The hour cannot be late; just another sign of the seasons changing. As they make their way towards the villa, they hear excited voices and see a crowd of people gathering around a parked car.
Hero stops walking. John pauses beside her. "What is it?"
She turns her wide doe-like gaze upon him. "My cousins are home."