Chapter 12

The rest of the first term went quite smoothly. Kate kept in touch with her mother and actually flew down south by herself for a long weekend visit to confer with her about the wedding. She came back with a list of people whom her mother wanted to invite so that we would have some idea about the numbers for the catering.

We had already booked the hotel at the same time as we made the booking for the chapel but we still had to confirm the numbers. I added the girl who helped us with our horse and also her mother and father and younger sister. I also invited David Mac Nair and his wife. I did this partly to increase the numbers from my side since I did not want the guest list to be so completely one sided and because they were the only friends that I made this time around.

I got a big surprise when Sylvia phoned just before we broke up for Christmas and invited us to stay with them over the festive season. I talked to Katy about the invitation because I didn't want to spend Christmas feeling uncomfortable with her father's attitude. If he was going to be awkward I would have much preferred if we could have shared it with our friends in Saint Andrews. At the same time, however, I certainly didn't want to offend or hurt Sylvia.

Katy phoned her mother after this and let her know about my feelings on the matter. Sylvia assured her daughter that she had spoken to her father and told him in no uncertain terms that he had better be civil and make an effort to show that we were welcome. I was not sure how much this would improve matters but I agreed to go anyway.

I really wasn't looking forward to it because I still felt that it would be an uncomfortable week since we were going down a few days early so that Sylvia could introduce me to a few of the friends and relatives whom she had also invited, some just for the dinner and others for a few days at the castle.

As I thought about his I realised how stupid I had been about this matter. The Doctor on the ship had told me I really had the potential to develop my powers as a telepath and I had made no attempt to do so. To tell the truth, I really did not want to rattle around in someone else's brain because there were as many downsides to this as there were positives.

Now it occurred to me that I might be able to penetrate her father's mind and get some idea of what was going on with him. If I knew that, then perhaps I would have a better chance of encouraging a more positive attitude in him regarding me and my relationship with his daughter It might turn out that the discovery would actually reveal the other side of the coin, that there was no way he was ever going to change in that regard. If that was the case, then at least I would know and we could disregard him and get on with our lives.

For the last few weeks when I was sitting in class doing stuff I had done before, I began trying to make brief excursions into the minds of my classmates. I wanted to keep them brief partly because I did not want to discover any secrets about them and secondly I did not want to be forced to take action if I did discover anything horrendous like a serious crime or something like that.

I found that I could make contact with some and not others. Most of the time these revealed thoughts about what was going on in class or the fact that they were bored and wished the professor would get to the end of what he was saying. Others had stray thoughts about what they were going to do later that day or had done previously. There was nothing of any import.

Well that is not strictly true; one girl actually undermined my attempts to keep my intrusions into their minds very brief. She was actually thinking about me.

Her thoughts revealed that she thought I was a hunk and a rich hunk at that. Because I dallied there I also learned that if I were to make a play for her, not only would she be willing to entertain me, but she would also be willing to drop her panties for me.

Believe it or not, it was that last thought which made me pull out of her mind as she started to fantasise about what we might do to together. When I reflected on this I smiled to myself. If I had been endowed with this gift in my previous existence, I would have taken full advantage of it. The old me would have listened in to her erotic fantasy and then picked her up and fulfilled it for her irrespective of the fact that I was dating someone else.

This time round I was in a very novel situation, I was deeply in love with my fiancée and was not going to do anything which might endanger that relationship. I also knew that it was not just about the consequences that such blatant infidelity would have on Katy but was the result of my deep feelings for her and how much I needed her. She made me feel complete in a way that none of my wives had ever done.

When I made intrusions into people's minds in the beginning I was often left with a headache which discouraged me from doing it too often. By the time we got to the end of the term, the intensity of these headaches lessened and sometimes did not occur at all. The big question for me though, was whether or not someone as hostile as his lordship would have a mind that was open to my probing. For some reason there were some people whose minds I could not enter. I would just have to wait and see.

When we arrived for our Christmas stay, both Sylvia and his lordship welcomed us on arrival. They were about to have afternoon tea with two guests who had arrived earlier that morning. Once we had put our luggage in our bedroom we tidied up and went downstairs to join them. We were then introduced to Doctor Bob Courtney and his wife Jill. He was working here in a London hospital on a two year exchange.

They were a lively couple in their late thirties and the conversation flowed quite pleasantly. They talked about their life in South Africa, which from a white standpoint was very affluent. At home they could afford servants Jill said, and while she had a daily come in to do some cleaning over here, she was more involved in cleaning and cooking than she had ever been in her life before.

Both of them, even then thought that someday things would have to change and they felt it would be better to plan for that rather than act as the government did to try and stop change at any cost. I thought that this was very forward thinking indeed. However, Bob was of the opinion that even if change did come, it would be a long time before things improved for the average black African worker. With my knowledge from my past life I agreed that he was right about that.

Over dinner I thought I might have a chance to probe Lord Harry's mind but this proved impossible. Between eating and keeping up with the conversation it was impossible to find the space be able concentrate in the way that I would need if I was to succeed. When we moved through to another room for coffee and the conversation flowed I was able to make a few initial probes and caught snatches of what he was thinking. This, however was mainly to do with the ongoing conversation and about the responses he wanted to make.

I had a breakthrough on the day of Christmas Eve. Lord Harry was in his office working and I was in the lounge next door. He had called for a coffee and the maid had brought him one. As he relaxed with it I managed to make contact with his mind and he switched from the things he had been working on to thinking about Sylvia and her attitude to us. He was fretting about why she had suddenly decided to go against him and back our relationship.

As he mulled this over in his mind his thoughts turned to me. As far as he was concerned I was a bit of an upstart. What seemed to worry him most was his fear about the reliability of his son as his heir. He accepted that the boy was not stable. In fact his behaviour not only threatened all that the family had built up, but right at this moment it was placing his son's life in danger. If anything happened to his son; now that the law was about to change, his daughter would become his heir.

He thought about this. He had not realised that what his son had done had caused her such trauma. He had thought for years, that's like his son, she too was a bit unstable and cursed his luck at siring two such children. Now that she had a stable relationship with this young man and had stood up to him over it he was having to revise his thoughts about her.

My head was beginning to hurt as I stayed in contact with his thinking, but I shut my eyes and gritted my teeth and hug on in there as his thoughts switched to me.

The young man seemed to come from nowhere and not much could be gleaned about his ancestry. He was rich, however, and like his daughter he was bright and seemed a very mature and stable kind of guy. Looked at from a genetic point of view it seemed a good match which might be good for strengthening his line. Maybe he should be a bit more accepting since, if anything happened to his son; his daughter would then inherit the title and her children would become the line from which future heirs would emerge.

At this stage, Sylvia and Katy came into the room and I had to pull out from Lord Harry's mind and the pain of the headache struck with full force. It must of shown on my face because Katy looked at me in alarm.

"You look dreadful Calumn, you are as white as a sheet," she exclaimed.

I managed to open my eyes and forced an answer through my lips.

"I think I've got a migraine," I told her, "I have a had a few of these lately. I have some tablets for them in my toilet bag, I will nip upstairs and get one, they are usually effective, and I will be all right in about half an hour or so."

With that, I made my escape and headed for our bedroom. I had in fact purchased some Migrilieve tablets for occasions like this and I took two with a glass of water and lay down on the bed. As in the past when I had probed into someone's mind I relaxed and the pain gradually ebbed. I was just getting up as Katy entered the room.

"Are you sure you are OK?" she asked. "You looked dreadful down stairs."

"I'm fine," I told her, "It's just a migraine. When I was younger I had a spell of them, but they seem to have returned. Perhaps it is the lack of your father's acceptance and the big changes facing us that is the cause," I lied.