I heard the sound of pounding before I entered the front door. No one was in the main hall, but the banging went on below us. I opened a door at the back of the house and descended to the kitchens and servants' quarters, where I found two men tearing out the walls.

They looked up when I came clattering down, saw that it was only the captain, and returned to smashing. Cooper came down behind me.

"Anything?" he shouted.

"Not yet," one of the men said.

"This paneling is fifty years old, and intact," I said over the hammering. "It's doubtful anything will be behind it."

Cooper shrugged. "No stone unturned, sir."

I ought to have been far more upset to see them bashing away at my ancestral home. However, the memories I had of this house were far from pleasant, and it was a wreck in any case. The best memories were of this kitchen, in fact. The cook would secretly feed the ravenous appetite of a growing youth when my father had thought a little starving would make me more obedient.

I surveyed the wreckage for a time then said, "Pull out all the paneling, every bit of it. We'll take it up to the stable yard and build a bonfire. Then you can start on the upstairs."

The men looked at me in surprise. Cooper nodded at them, and they turned back to the task with more gusto.

I picked up an axe one of the men had laid aside. Cooper kept a keen eye on me as I approached a wall they hadn't yet touched. I raised my arms over my head and let the axe slam into the wall.

The white-painted wood splintered. I hacked at the paneling until it began to come away from the solid stone that had sat on this spot for more than two hundred years.

I drew a breath, wiped my brow, shucked my coat, and raised the axe again. I moved to the next patch of paneling and struck another heavy blow.

There was release in the destruction, a sort of joy. I pounded at the walls again and again, until sweat ran down my face, and I was laughing.