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 itthatlast-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.’
‘Now, my guess,’ Theo said, tilting his head, ‘is that you were getting married in some clock tower somewhere– the Elizabeth Tower, perhaps? Or the Belfry of Bruges? Or, if you were feeling particularly romantic, under Prague’s Astronomical Clock.’
