Page 113 of The Clockmaker's Cottage
‘A beautiful tree,’ he said, leaning in for another kiss.
They finished plating up breakfast and carried their dishes into the living room, where the newly renovated space felt warm and cosy despite the storm outside. The sofa was piled with patchwork cushions, colourful bunting hung across the ceiling, and pastel-pink striped curtains finished the room off perfectly.
Theo sat down on the sofa and Pippa sat next to him, their plates balanced on trays on their laps.
‘Do you want a girl or a boy?’ Pippa asked, stealing one of Theo’s hash browns.
He considered it. ‘I genuinely don’t mind. But if we have a girl, I think she’ll run rings around me.’
‘She will,’ Pippa agreed. ‘You’ll love it.’
Theo rested a hand on her stomach. ‘What about you?’
‘I don’t mind, as long as they’re interested in clocks and one day take over our empire.’
Theo grinned. ‘Wouldn’t that be the dream.’
‘Oh, it absolutely would,’ she said with a smile.
‘I often think how strange it was how everything happened. If you hadn’t run away, if you hadn’t entered that competition, if you hadn’t walked into the cottage at the exact moment you did?—’
‘You must have nearly had a heart attack when you saw me standing there in a wedding dress.’
Theo grinned. ‘I did, and now look at us– a beautiful cottage, a business, and our first baby on the way.’
‘First?’ she questioned.
‘Oh yes, I want a football team.’
They ate in comfortable silence for a moment, listening to the steady drum of rain against the windowpanes.
The truth about Agatha and Arthur had shaken the island and the rest of the clockmaking world, but it had brought closure as well. Horace had declared that Andrew was the genius behind most of the designs, and donated money to charities chosen by the Wetherby family. He’d also met with Sebastian who had been kinder than expected.
Arthur had also faced the consequences. Theo had made it clear that the way Arthur had conducted himself– letting an innocent man suffer– was something he could never overlook. He no longer put his grandfather on a pedestal; if anything, the affair had shown him how easily money and ambition could twist people. Arthur insisted he’d been in love with Agatha, said the whole thing had broken his heart, but that didn’t excuse what he’d done, and even though Theo still saw him and kept up some form of relationship, it would never be the same again.
Theo had been embraced by the island far more than he was by the clockmaking world after the scandal came to light.
‘I’m glad we stayed,’ he said simply. ‘People here didn’t judge me for what my grandfather did. They treated me like myself. That meant everything.’
‘This community is like no other.’
Horace had offered them the cottage the moment everything settled down, insisting they stay for as long as they liked, and when Theo eventually made an offer to buy it, Horace accepted without hesitation.
Theo and Pippa moved into Clockmaker’s Cottage properly, and together they transformed The Clock House into a shop and luxury workshop, where they also ran an apprentice scheme in horology.
Bell & Blake Clock House had turned out better than either of them could have imagined, with a shop front full of restored clocks, gleaming pocket watches, and designs of their own. Pippa’s dream that she’d barely allowed herself to picture a year ago was now very real, and she was sharing it with a man she loved with all her heart.
A roll of thunder shook the windowpanes and the rain intensified.
‘A perfect St Swithin’s Day,’ Pippa said, standing up and gathering the empty plates. ‘We’ll have to head over and open up the shop soon.’
‘Remember this time last year when you stepped outside straight into that huge puddle and you just carried on walking?’
‘I knew you were watching from the window.’ She laughed, looking at him– really looking at him– and her chest warmed with the kind of love that still surprised her sometimes. He got her… completely.
‘This is where we were meant to be,’ she continued, going into the kitchen, ‘and even though the Vale Brothers’ partnership didn’t have a happy ending, I know ours will.’
‘It will. Time, for once, was on our side.’
