Deceit. [COMPLETED.]

Chapter 9

"Into this world."

[TEN YEARS AGO.]
[JENNIFER STAMFORD.]

'She has lost a lot of blood. We are doing everything we can. It's good that we've got to her in time and the main thing is the baby's heart rate is strong. I don't want you to worry.'

The young Doctor Bauer's words were left hanging in the air as if someone had turned the volume down on his voice.

'We've sedated her. I am waiting for the senior doctor to attend in case there are any complications but we've stopped the bleeding.'

He waited to see if anyone wanted to say anything. No one did and so he tried again.

'Under these circumstances we don't normally invite parents into the theatre but if the need is there then I am sure this can be arranged.'

He offered the mother a reassuring smile. He could see that she was tired. At thirty two he had started to see enough trauma in the eyes of his patients and family members to know when to hold his tongue and so he stood and waited.

Jane Stamford was an elegant woman.

In her early forties, she was slim, dressed in a matching tweed jacket and skirt with a plain white shirt underneath, open necked and overlaid with a Cartier Jade necklace. Her eyes were blood shot. It was the only sign to indicate that she was hurting in an otherwise serene expression. She fidgeted, her gaze never straying from the glass partition that separated her from her daughter.

Jane Stamford had a title, but she also had a husband who had bought into that title. It had been what some would have called a marriage of convenience. There might have been love there once but that had long since passed and now she was a shell of her former self waiting as always for her husband to respond.

Robert Stamford stood unmoved.

In contrast to his wife he had no watery eyes, nor did he feel anything to indicate that he cared what was happening to his daughter. On the contrary his mind was taken up on a more pressing matter and while Doctor Bauer talked his eyes flitted restlessly down the deserted corridor.

When they had arrived, the  woman at the reception desk had spoken of a friend, a woman of similar age to his daughter and that woman, Stamford had guessed, must have been the same girl from the nunnery only where was she?

More to the point was she going to talk?

'Your daughter is strong.' Bauer was saying. 'She is young which is the main thing and after the birth we'll keep her here for a couple of days and then maybe a few weeks convalescing at home.'

Stamford ignored him as he did everyone when he was deep in thought. Money was on his mind. Lots of money. The question was who did he need to give it to on this occasion. In the last scandal that his daughter had been involved in it had been straight forward enough. A donation to the police ball. A hint that a certain chief of police would get Stamford's seal of approval. The matter was dealt with there and then only now, he felt he was missing something.

He frowned.

That damn fool of a son of his.

"It will be fine pops. I've been told of a place that is so away from everything no one will ever find out."

Well they have and now there was a real risk of the tabloids getting their hands on this or worse, one of those sleazy magazines.

He turned his attention back to the doctor, all the while distracted by what he was going to do next.