Page 21 of The Clockmaker's Cottage
‘He didn’t have a good word to say about you at the dinner party.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He said that he didn’t think you’d last long here. That Cambridge isn’t really for… people like you.’
Pippa had frozen. The words burned.Not for people like you. She didn’t even know what that was supposed to mean. Because she’d worked for this. She’d earned her place. She wasn’t some fluke accident who’d slipped through the admissions net. But once Sebastian planted the seed, it festered. How dare Theo Blake judge her. Those words had hurt her and just like that, Sebastian had positioned himself as the ally. The one on her side.
After that, people seemed to keep their distance from her. It felt like they, too, agreed with Theo, and that was how their feud had started.
Then there was week three of university. Lecture Room Four. She remembered it like it was yesterday.
Pippa sat in the middle of the lecture theatre, the student next to her having just admired her favourite silk scarf, the one with tiny illustrations of vintage mantel clocks. They’d been told to prepare their own thoughts on the assigned reading and to be ready to present them to the class, and the tutor had started with Theo.
Theo hadn’t seemed nervous as he announced clearly into the microphone at the front of the lecture hall that he would be covering ‘Purity Over Sentiment: Mechanical Integrity in Late-Georgian Restoration’.
Pippa could hear the whispered gushes of admiration from her fellow female students, but she felt nothing but loathing. Yes, he was annoyingly handsome, with an immaculately tailored blazer, and yes, he was able to instantly charm the rest of his peers, but Pippa told herself she was immune to it. She was determined to use this opportunity to challenge him, not because she disagreed with what he was saying, but because she wanted to prove herself– and to prove hewas wrong to judge her.
‘In my opinion, restoration is not about nostalgia,’ Theo began. ‘It is about precision. A clock is a machine; it does not feel. It either functions, or it doesn’t. Any addition of sentiment is a contamination of the historical record.’
Oh, he was good. He’d captured everyone’s attention and the way he spoke was mesmerising. You would never have guessed he was a first-year student, the way he held himself and spoke off the cuff with no written notes. Pippa raised her hand, not waiting for the question portion of his time, and interrupted. ‘Sorry,’ she said, not sorry at all, ‘Are you saying that the entire human history attached to the object is… irrelevant?’
Theo narrowed his eyes, looking flustered for a moment, caught off guard by the challenge. ‘I’m saying that when you start choosing which memories to preserve based on emotion, you compromise the object’s integrity.’
‘Right,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘God forbid we compromise a cogwheel’s feelings.’
Laughter rippled through the room but Theo held her gaze. ‘Sentimentality,’ he said coolly, ‘is often a disguise for sloppy craftsmanship.’
Pippa flushed. ‘And sterile minimalism is often a disguise for a complete lack of imagination.’
They stared at each other across twenty rows of amused academics, across wildly different philosophies, across an invisible line they both pretended wasn’t there.
Theo looked away first, and Pippa couldn’t stop the triumphant smirk that spread across her face.
‘You’re up, then?’ Theo turned back to the pan on the stove and calmly flipped a piece of sizzling bacon, all effortless domestic competence.
‘Smells good,’ Pippa said, peering over his shoulder and breathing in the mix of sizzling bacon and something woodsy and warm that was unmistakably him. Her stomach gave another small, traitorous flip.
Theo glanced at her, eyebrow raised. ‘Are you smelling me or the bacon?’
She straightened a little too quickly. ‘The bacon, obviously.’
He gave a quiet laugh and turned back to the pan, and she suddenly wished her face didn’t feel quite so hot.
‘Are you… cooking me breakfast?’
He turned slightly, lifted a mug to his lips, and took a slow, deliberate sip, like a man in a coffee advert.
‘After all,’ she continued, sitting down at the table. ‘Last night I fed you sandwiches, sparing you the indignity of wading through floodwater in search of food. I practically saved you from drowning. I was fairly instrumental to your survival, wouldn’t you say?’ She said it primly, her eyes locked on the mountain of eggs, bacon, beans, black pudding, and toast that he was now piling on his plate.
‘So,’ he said, with a hint of amusement, ‘you’re after some sort of… repayment?’
‘Only a token gesture.’ She tilted her head towards his plate. ‘A crust. A bean. Maybe half a sausage if you’re feeling generous.’
Theo let out a low laugh and shook his head, sliding his fork protectively across the plate. ‘You’re shameless, and no, I’m not making you breakfast.’
‘Completely shameless,’ she said brightly. ‘Good thing I’ve got a full English waiting at the café anyway. Clemmie said to pop by this morning.’
That made Theo glance over properly. ‘So you didn’t actually need me to share,’ he said, placing his mug of coffee onto the table.
