Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Pippa stood at the sink and poured herself a glass of water while Theo locked himself back in the bathroom. She still couldn’t quite believe that, out of all the humans in the known universe, and out of every horologist, it had to be Theo Blake who was her fellow competition winner.
Several years had passed since their final year at Cambridge University, when Theo had walked away triumphant, taking the top prize at the British Horological Society’s Student Symposium.
Pippa had forced a polite smile that barely hid her frustration as his paper, an insightful study of the Vale Brothers and their contributions to twentieth-century horology, was hailed as groundbreaking – a reminder of both his brilliance and her own quietly stifled ambition.
Determined to distract herself, Pippa wandered around the cottage. The living room held clocks everywhere she looked, yet none of them were going. Dozens of faces stared back at her, frozen at different times of day, as if each one had simply stopped mid-moment.
She counted twenty-five clocks in the living room alone, all crafted by Walter and Horace Vale.
A cuckoo clock with a hand-painted chalet hung proudly above the fireplace, its small door open where a bird had probably once popped out, the hands stuck at 6.
43. A tall grandfather clock stood regal in the corner, its pendulum motionless and its chime silenced.
On the windowsill rested a delicate carriage clock, golden and gleaming, paused at 10.
18. The whole room felt like a ticking museum that had forgotten to tick.
Pippa wandered through to the snug where a small desk sat tucked into the corner. There were only a few clocks in here, but as she stood beside the desk, she suddenly heard it – a faint ticking sound.
Baffled, she looked around, but none of the clocks were moving.
Then she glanced down at the pocket watch still pinned to her dress.
Her breath caught. The hands were moving.
It was actually working. Her father had said it had never worked, yet here it was ticking away as if nothing had ever been wrong with it.
She decided to take it as a good omen that things might soon start looking up for her.
Because life couldn’t get much worse at the moment.
Still puzzling over it, she wandered back into the living room, her eyes drifting once more over the silent clocks that filled every corner of the cottage.
She continued browsing.
‘They’re quite remarkable, aren’t they?’
Pippa spun around.
Theo stood there, now dry and dressed, but somehow even more distracting than when he’d been dripping in a towel.
His dark hair, still slightly damp, curled softly at the edges and he wore a soft navy jumper with the sleeves pushed up – revealing tanned forearms that Pippa refused to stare at, even though the temptation was strong – and jeans that managed to look both lived-in and unfairly flattering.
His jaw was sharp, his eyes the kind that held a hundred unspoken thoughts, and there was something in the way he half-smiled – crooked, reluctant – that could make her forget her own name.
Trust him to look like a tortured academic who’d accidentally wandered into a Boden catalogue.
She gave herself a sharp internal shake. No. Absolutely not.
This was how it had started with Rob: lingering looks, stupid thoughts, and the dangerous illusion that he was charming instead of catastrophic. But this wasn’t a romcom; it was a horror film. She’d just run from her wedding, for God’s sake, and Theo Blake was her enemy, not to mention married.
‘There’re fifty clocks in the cottage altogether.’
Before Pippa could reply, a shrill alarm sliced through the air.
‘Oh, hell,’ Theo muttered, eyes widening. ‘The lasagne!’
He turned and sprinted towards the kitchen with Pippa following, and she watched as he yanked open the oven door, only to be met with a dense grey cloud of smoke that billowed out like an overdramatic ghost. The smoke alarm wailed louder.
Theo coughed, picked up a tea-towel and waved it frantically at the alarm. ‘No, no, no… Damn it!’
Trying not to laugh, Pippa opened the back door to let in some air, immediately regretting it as a gust of wind and driving rain swept straight inside, but thankfully the shrill of the alarm stopped.
‘Well, that’s my dinner ruined,’ Theo muttered, dragging the charred tray out of the oven and dumping it on top of the hob. ‘Brilliant. Everything’s closed now. I mean, maybe not the pub, but I really don’t fancy venturing out in this weather. I’d need a canoe to get there.’
‘Shame,’ Pippa said brightly. ‘That looks like it could have been tasty.’
Theo shot her a look. ‘Do you ever stop being smug?’
She shrugged then laughed.
‘It’s not funny.’
‘I’m not really laughing at your burnt lasagne – well, maybe a little – it’s more …
this.’ She gestured between them. ‘You. Me. Standing here like this. I’m dressed like this, and you’ve just cremated dinner.
If someone had told me this is where I’d end up twenty-four hours ago, I might have actually gone through with the wedding. ’
‘Always did love that deadpan humour of yours.’
‘Now, is that a hint of sarcasm I detect? Or have you actually been admiring me from afar for all these years?’ She smiled to herself.
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ he replied, trying to suppress a smile as he looked at the burnt remains of his dinner, which was still steaming gently in protest.
‘Okay,’ she declared. ‘I can see that the storm is in full force and I can’t have anyone starving on my watch. Clemmie from the café gave me some leftover sandwiches when she rescued me from the train station. Ham or cheese?’
Theo narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you actually being nice to me?’
‘Don’t get used to it. I’ll trade one sandwich for one cup of tea.’
‘Deal.’ Theo grinned and immediately switched on the kettle. ‘Shouldn’t you go and get changed?’
‘To be honest, I’m starving as I missed out on my wedding buffet. I’ll eat then get myself sorted.’
Minutes later, they sat at opposite ends of the old cottage sofa like two reluctant diplomats at a peace summit. For a few long minutes, they ate in near silence, and when Pippa eventually glanced over, she found he was watching her. ‘What?’ she said, brushing crumbs off her lap.
Theo tilted his head. ‘I can’t quite believe you’re sitting there in your wedding dress, eating a sandwich with me in a cottage on an island off the coast, while rain lashes the windows on St Swithin’s Day.
And honestly … who organises a wedding on St Swithin’s Day?
’ Theo’s gaze flicked over her, thoughtful in that maddeningly academic way of his.
‘I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve always had a flair for the dramatic. ’
‘And you’re still full of judgement.’
Theo raised his eyebrows.
‘Oh please,’ she scoffed, leaning forward.
‘You were judging me long before I ever opened my mouth.’ Pippa’s mind slipped back to their first week at Cambridge.
Theo had stood out from the crowd, unmistakably different from the other students.
There had been something about him then, something quietly magnetic.
But he hadn’t thought the same about her; something she’d discovered when he’d declared, quite openly and in front of other students, that she wasn’t good enough to be at Cambridge.
It wasn’t true, of course. She’d worked her backside off to get there.
He had no idea about the late nights, the early starts, the weekends swallowed whole by textbooks and revision, all in the pursuit of straight As.
It hadn’t been easy and she was proud of what she’d achieved, so to be taken down a peg right from the moment she arrived had felt awful.
It didn’t matter how good-looking she’d initially thought he was; from that moment on, she saw him as an enemy.
‘You repaired a mantel clock with nail varnish, Pippa. There was departmental outrage.’
She grinned. ‘It was high-quality enamel and it worked.’
‘It was pink.’
‘It was rosewood blush, actually.’
Theo looked like he might combust faster than his lasagne. ‘You don’t experiment on a late-Georgian timepiece with cosmetics.’
‘I don’t need a PhD to know when something’s broken and how to fix it.’
‘And I don’t need someone with a toolkit and a glitter pen telling me how to interpret horological history.’
‘Still terrified of emotion, I see.’
‘Still allergic to logic, I see.’
They stared at each other across the dwindling pile of sandwiches. Then something flickered behind Theo’s eyes – maybe amusement? – and he shook his head with a reluctant smile.
‘I can’t believe I’m here with you.’
‘Believe me, like I’ve already said, if I’d known this was my honeymoon alternative, I might’ve just said “I do”, eaten my weight in sausage rolls, and at least had a slice of the ￡500 wedding cake I was guilted into ordering.’
Theo smirked. ‘You’re telling me the cake was more of a commitment than the groom?’
‘Obviously,’ she said. ‘The cake never told me horology was a “cute little hobby”.’
He winced. ‘Oof. He really said that?’
‘Oh yes. Right after I explained the difference between a lever escapement and a cylinder escapement. He nodded like I was listing types of cheese.’
Theo chuckled, then tilted his head. ‘But why leave it that last-minute?’
‘Because he rolled his eyes at the song I’d chosen to walk down the aisle to.’
‘Which was?’
She grinned. ‘Coldplay’s “Clocks”.’
There was a beat of silence before Theo laughed – an actual, proper laugh that crinkled the corners of his eyes. ‘Okay, that’s … kind of brilliant.’
Pippa tried to suppress a smile. ‘You approve?’
‘Let’s just say, for the first time in our very long academic feud, I’m … mildly impressed.’
‘High praise from Doctor Blake.’
‘Don’t let it go to your head, Bell.’
‘I’ll do my best.’