Carved in Stone: Monochrome Destiny (8 page)

“Drink
this.” Andrew ordered, handing her a cup of hot chocolate before sitting on the
opposite sofa.

Upon
Andrew’s insistence, Robyn had taken off her soiled clothing and had a steaming
hot shower to warm up.   Her clothes were currently on a wash and dry
cycle.

Max
lay on the carpet snoozing at her feet and she curled her bare legs up on the
seat to cover them with the cloth of the robe before gently blowing on the hot
chocolate.  She felt very uncomfortable.

“Why
were you in the graveyard?” Andrew’s tone was abrasive.  There was nothing
new there.

“Are
you this direct with everybody?”  Her anger had not waned.  He had
ordered her around since arriving and she was fed up with it.

“Perhaps.
  Now
answer the question.”

He
sat back, relaxed and stretched out, his long limbs crossed in front of him and
his arms resting on the back of the sofa.  Robyn hated to admit it, but he
was a picture.  He still stared at her with irritation however, and his
tone had not eased.

“You
may have me at a distinct disadvantage,” she gestured to the robe, and what was
missing beneath it, “but I don’t usually respond to demands.”

He
studied her for a second, his eyes moving proprietarily slowly whilst his body
remained still.  Robyn fought the urge to squirm under the intensity of
his gaze.

He
sensed her discomfort.  “If I wanted you at a disadvantage, I can assure
you I would have used other means.”

Andrew’s
eyes blazed and she knew he was waiting for a response.  She wouldn’t give
him the satisfaction, nor would she respond to the sudden clenching within her
core.

“But
I would like to know what had you so intrigued in the churchyard?  So I
ask, politely, if you would like to share that with
me?
” 
His lips curled into a smile that almost undid her, and so, with careful
consideration, she decided to answer.  Purposeful or not, she was at a
disadvantage, and overtly polite Andrew was more unnerving than aloof Andrew.

“I
was trying to read the engravings on the gravestones, not that it concerns
you.”  She blew another breath over the chocolate before taking a
tentative sip.

Andrew’s
brows rose a little, perhaps because she wouldn’t kowtow to him.

“Did
you find anything interesting?”  He played one finger across his
lip.  It was an innocent enough move, but it exposed his interest and was
incredibly distracting.

“Perhaps.
 
Perhaps, more mysterious than interesting.”
Robyn looked at
him over the rim of the chocolate as she took another sip.  She saw his
eyes flash for a moment and that finger played with that lip again.  She
felt empowered.

“Are
you going to keep it to yourself?”  He shifted his legs, uncrossed them
and planted them on the floor before leaning forwards.  It was a
challenge, she could see it plainly but she would not be played.

“Are
you always this demanding?”  She placed the cup down on the table between
them and slowly unravelled her bare legs, letting them slide to the floor
before leaning forwards herself.

He
smiled, it was hidden behind his hand but she saw it.

“Maybe
I am, maybe I’m not.  Perhaps it is just with you.”

Nerves
knotted in her stomach, but she would not yield.

“Well
then, maybe I did find something, maybe I didn’t.  It would depend on your
point of view.”  She stared at him, met his gaze with her own but let
nothing show on her face.

 “You
goad me, Miss Darrow.”  There was mischief there.  She could see it
through the brooding.  He was enjoying this.  It was a game. 
One she intended to play.

“I
should say that you started it, Mr
Obursen
.”

Something
glistened in his eyes despite his face remaining placid.  It was too
subtle to interpret, but Robyn was beginning to decipher it when he
moved.  Swiftly and with ease, he stood, stepped forwards and settled
beside her on the sofa; close, too close considering she wore nothing beneath
the robe.

Her
head turned to follow Andrew as he leaned over her, his eyes piercing. 
Her chest felt suddenly tight, as if a band were being tightened around
it.  She swallowed as Andrew stilled, his face only inches from hers, his
interest in her alone.  God, he smelled so good, dark spice and earthy
musk, masculinity in aromatic form.  It was a scent she could wilfully
bury herself in, a scent that scared her.

Andrew’s
eyes brushed over the features of Robyn’s face and then, purposefully slowly,
he lowered his gaze, first down and then back up again as she held herself
steady, wondering what he intended to do.

“How
can I help solve the mystery if you do not let me know what it is?”  The
words brushed her skin, the caress making her want to sigh.  Her mouth was
dry and her heart a flutter.  This handsome man was powerful and he knew
it, and that made him very dangerous.  The way he moved, with dark
confidence and utter control.  Robyn knew that she couldn’t handle
this.  Not him.  Not Andrew.  Her heart pounded harder, as warm
nervous tingles swept up and down her body.

Andrew’s
lips pulled into a satisfied smile.  He had her, and he knew it.  He
pulled back.

“Speak.”
He commanded.

She
did.

“I
found headstones showing several family members dying on the same date.”

“Headstones?
All on exactly the same date?”
His head tilted with intrigue
but the demand was still in his tone.

“Not
all the same, I mean, the headstones themselves were not all dated the same.
 
But on each one several people, those buried there,
each died on the same day as each other.”

“How many?”
His eyes bore
into her with a directness that made her uncomfortable.

“Five
the other
day
and another today.”
 
She watched him roll the information around
in his mind.

“That’s
why you were scrubbing off the moss?”

So
he had been watching her.

“Yes,
I couldn’t make out the lettering.  I found three names on the stone so
far, but there could be more.  I just can’t fathom what could have
happened to explain the mass deaths.”

“What
have you considered?” There was a light in him that hadn’t been there
before.  This was his area, he was the history teacher.

 “I’ve
wondered about accidents, particularly fire, and illnesses, but that seems
unlikely, and I’m struggling with anything else.”  She reached for her
drink, suddenly needing the refreshment.

“Fire
would be my top choice for one or maybe two stones in a graveyard of that size
but six, maybe more? No.  Why did you dismiss illness?” He looked at her
in question but there was something more she couldn’t put her finger on.

“Um,
well, I couldn’t think of anything to explain it, you know, all of them dying
on the same day.  Illness affects individuals differently and spreads from
one to another.  Different generations don’t all become infected at once
and die together.”

“No,
but who says they died together?”

She
raised an eyebrow but he continued

“Did
you make a note of the dates of the deaths?  Do all the stones have the
same date or close?”

“Um no.
  They
didn’t happen at the same time.  I didn’t take notes of the exact dates
although I do have pictures, but they are spread between 1846 and 1912, so
far.”

Andrew
sat for a second, looking out of the window, showing her a perfect
profile.  “In the early 1800s there was a lot of disease.  When Queen
Victoria came to the throne in 1837 there was very little hygiene.  Sewage
seeped into water due to bad drainage design, people didn’t use baths and the
way poor people lived, all crowded together only helped disease spread. 
Influenza was around and affected everyone, but typhus, typhoid and cholera
affected mainly the poor.  Typhus was a big issue when Victoria came to
the throne, but that’s a bit early for your dates.  It came back in the
late 1840’s though with the flu and together they killed over fifty thousand.”

“Fifty thousand?”
It seemed such
a high number.  Robyn was shocked that with such a massive loss of life
she didn’t know this.

“That’s
only the documented ones.  Anyone that died without proper diagnosis or
died out in the country where things weren’t so well recorded, they wouldn’t be
included in those figures.”

“That’s
a lot of people”

“That’s
nothing.  Measles and whooping cough would have killed the same number
around that time.  But the biggest killer was cholera.”

She
listened intently as Andrew explained the movement of cholera from Asia. 
After a huge outbreak along the banks of the Ganges, the movement of traders
had spread the disease around the globe.  Cholera was the first global
pandemic and Britain did not avoid it.

As
Andrew talked, he sat back into the sofa, those long limbs stretched out, at
ease again.  Relaxed and totally in his comfort zone, he looked different,
acted different.  He was passionate about history and when he spoke you
could feel it, and didn’t that just make him sexy.  His passions stirred
her own
and she shook her head appalled at her lack of
self-control.  This was a man that she needed to stay away from. 
Domineering, aloof and arrogant, Andrew
Obursen
was
not someone Robyn should get mixed up with, on any level.  She inhaled
slowly and blinked errant thoughts away.

“Cholera
kills in a really nasty way” Andrew continued, he didn’t go into detail but
Robyn already knew that the disease gave its victim severe diarrhoea, and
severely dehydrated the body.  Victims suffered from intense pains of the
limbs, stomach and abdominal muscles.  It was a horrid way to go, and
quick.  Cholera patients could die in a day.  “Most victims were
poor.  The general squalid conditions in which the poor lived, and their
lack of hygiene and general poor health, helped the disease to kill most of the
victims.  Those few that survived found themselves so weak that they often
succumbed to another infection shortly afterwards.”

Robyn
listened as he explained that the disease had killed thousands during the early
Victorian era before they had an idea how to stop it and then she couldn’t help
but smile when she realised that she knew some of this.

 “You’re
smiling?” He asked
her,
curious as to why Robyn could
seem happy about so much pain and death.

She
flushed.  “Oh! Not about the disease.  I just realised that I know
this bit.  This is where John Snow carries out his investigation at the
Broad Street pump in Soho.  We teach this in year 9, along with other
famous early scientific discoveries that made huge differences to mortality
rates.”

“That’s
right.  He investigated the outbreak in 1854 and published the following
year.  But did you know that he had kind of worked it all out six years
before, but no-one really listened to him?”

“Really?”
The amount of
detail she needed when this was taught was limited.  The main focus of the
lesson was for the pupils to understand how scientific discovery had changed
the world they live in and that, because of a few determined minds, they lived
a relatively easy life.  Robyn didn’t need to go into great detail and
covered Joseph Lister, Edward Jenner and others in the same lesson. 

“The
scientific minds of the time thought that disease was spread by smell; that
clouds of noxious gas or ‘miasma’ as they called it, were carrying the
illness.  It was Snow who realised that something else was the cause, but
the germ theory didn’t come out until the early 1860’s.”

“I
can’t believe I didn’t think of cholera.” She taught about the mapping of the
Broad Street pump and yet hadn’t thought of cholera at all.

“It’s
a disease that still causes problems today.  After all major disasters the
World Health Organisation warns about cholera.  All over the world people
survive major catastrophe only to then be picked off by disease because water
supply and drainage systems are damaged.  There are still outbreaks across
the developing world.  It’s only where water is chlorinated that we have
it under control.  Now, do you think that disease could explain the
deaths?” He asked, a smile curving his lips and turning him from aloof to approachable.

“I.
. . Um . . . I don’t know.”  Unnerved by the sudden sensations flooding
through her, she needed a moment to swallow.  “Disease could certainly
have killed all those people but whole families on the same day?”

Andrew’s
eyes focused intently upon Robyn’s and, for a second, she believed he could see
straight through her.  Blood threatened to pool in her cheeks and give her
away, but she fought it with steely determination and met his gaze with cool,
calm eyes.

“That’s
easy to explain.  Years ago, a family may not have all died on the same
day but they certainly could have been discovered on the same day.  Think
about how remote some of the houses would be in
a farming
and fishing community like this.  Neighbours may not have noticed somebody
missing for days, even weeks.  There wasn’t the knowledge back then to
give a definitive time of death so often the dates on the death certificated
were the date that the body was discovered.  What’s written on those
graves is not necessarily the day they died.”