Page 19 of The Clockmaker's Cottage
Pippa groaned silently. ‘Please don’t.’
‘…“He sounds like the man you’ll marry one day,”’ Rose finished triumphantly.
‘And yet,’ Pippa whispered fiercely, ‘I almost married someone else this morning. So I think we can all agree I’m not even thinking about marriage again so soon. Also, you can’t marry a man who is already married.’
Rose laughed softly. ‘You have to go for any opportunity that presents itself.’
‘He. Is. Married,’ Pippa repeated, each word careful and quiet.
‘Yes, but is hehappilymarried?’
‘That,’ Pippa said, ‘is none of my business. I’m here to get my life in order. Not to complicate it further.’
‘You say that,’ Rose replied, ‘but you rang me to tell me right away.’
‘That’s because you’re my best friend, and I tell you everything. Now, I need grounding. Not encouragement.’
She glanced at the bedside table where her grandfather’s old watch lay. Its second hand ticked steadily on.
‘Oh,’ she added, lowering her voice even more, ‘and you’ll never guess what else.’
‘Go on…’
‘The watch that Dad gave me just before I arrived at the hotel– the one that originally belonged to my grandfather and never worked– it’s working.’
‘Well,’ Rose said lightly, ‘maybe it was just waiting for you to start the right chapter of your life.’
Pippa shook her head as she smiled. ‘You’re impossible.’
‘And yet,’ Rose said, ‘remarkably often right.’
Pippa shook her head, staring at the ceiling. ‘I’m hanging up.’
‘Fine,’ Rose said cheerfully. ‘But just so you know, Paddy Power odds are a dead cert that this is meant to be.’
‘You are completely deluded,’ Pippa whispered, before ending the call.
She lay there in the dark, heart thudding, listening to the quiet tick of the watch. The faint, infuriating awareness of Theo Blake on the other side of the wall was the last thing going through her mind as she fell asleep.
* * *
Pippa woke up with a mild headache, caused partly by the slight hangover and partly by having to face the consequences of running out on her wedding: none of her own clothes, minimal makeup, and no footwear even remotely suitable for the relentless rain outside. She leaned down and fumbled inside the rucksack, hoping to discover a couple of paracetamols, and was glad to discover that Rose hadn’t let her down. There, in the side pocket next to a phone charger, were two tablets in a battered old box.
Sitting up in bed, listening to the downpour that hadn’t let up for most of the night– something she knew thanks to hours of tossing and turning– Pippa settled on a simple plan. She would ignore Theo Blake as much as possible, and focus on the positives. She was staying at the legendary Clockmaker’s Cottage, and today she would see her idol, Horace Vale, give his first interview in decades.
Slowly, she pushed herself up, tugged open the curtains, then sank back into the bed, watching water streak down the glass in endless silvery lines. Clemmie’s voice from yesterday rang in her memory, reminding her to pop into the café for breakfast before the convention started, and that was her very plan after she got dressed.
She knew Theo was already up from the faint gurgle of water from the bathroom. As she shifted in bed, her gaze fell onto his university T-shirt, which she’d slept in. It was soft cotton and oversized, and without thinking she lowered her nose to the fabric and breathed in. Ridiculous, she knew, but the scent hit her anyway: not aftershave exactly, just warm, unmistakably masculine, and maddeningly clean. Somehow, it was… nice, and she hated herself for thinking that.
Theo Blake was the kind of man who turned heads. He dressed to impress, and always smelled good. Every single woman who was in a room with him hoped he looked in her direction. And after what Rose had said last night, it seemed Pippa hadn’t hidden her own feelings nearly as well as she’d thought. Yes, Pippa liked him once– properly liked him– but then he’d underestimated and dismissed her, made her feel small without ever really knowing her. So she’d packed those feelings away, labelled them a mistake, and taught herself to forget them.
Except now she was curled up in his T-shirt, and the faint scent of it was stirring things she had no intention of revisiting… not where Theo Blake was concerned.
For a second, she toyed with the idea of finding somewhere else to stay– with the weather like this, the B&B might have some cancellations– but as the rain continued to lash down, she decided she was not going to let Theo Blake ruin her weekend. This time on Puffin Island was all about the clocks and being surrounded by her type of people.
But still… Theo Blake was firmly on her mind as her fingers toyed absently with the hem of his T-shirt. Years had passed and they weren’t those sharp-edged students anymore, sparring over essays and egos, and yet she couldn’t help wondering how things might have been different if he hadn’t judged her so harshly back then. If he’d seen her– really seen her.
Pulling the duvet back over her, she glanced around the room she’d ended up in. It was a small but charming bedroom with sloping ceilings, and it had been painted white and scattered with hand-stitched cushions and a slightly threadbare tartan rug. There were five clocks arranged neatly on the far wall, and all of them had stopped. The only ticking she could hear was coming from her pocket watch. She reached for her phone on the side table, the battery clinging to life at 8 per cent. She tapped on the screen and winced.
