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Richard spent the evening trawling around drinking haunts, following rumours, plying old school fellows with drinks. Most of them had no idea, convinced that Edward Valance had skipped the capital two years ago, gone to ground in some provincial town to avoid his creditors. The few that had newer news were no more help, claiming he’d vanished the previous autumn, bailiffs descending upon him and sending him off to hitherto uncharted spunging houses. 

He caught more than a couple of comments, muttered or otherwise, Still looking for your Valance, Upright?

Richard bore it all, making discreet enquires from the handful that seemed as though they would have useful information. The new Earl of Forthenby? Can’t say I’ve met him, but I’ve heard…

After hours of fruitless searching Richard found him at the very place that he might have begun. 

It was a low tavern, much frequented by libertines and whores, which shouldered its way down among the coffee houses, clubs and meeting houses of modernity like a seedy hangover from a previous century. There was sawdust on the floor, and pot girls leaned over the counter, spilling out of their bodices to serve pints of porter to effete young men freshly down from Varsity; the kind of men who posed very prettily with a bawd on each hand, but ended the evening exchanging sweet nothings with young men from a rival school. 

For a moment, upon entering, he saw nothing and everything, overwhelmed by the smells of spilled beer and brandy, of the flashes of colour from the clothes, the immoderate amount of flesh upon display. He had never frequented such establishments and it took long moments for his vision to adapt to it, like the rolling walk of a sailor long confined to land. Yet as soon as he was able to pick out detail from the morass, he saw his enemy there, leaning against the bar.

Teddy Valance lounged, back where he had always felt he belonged - at the very heart of the debauchery. For while Richard had slowly, gruellingly pulled himself out of the poverty of cheap suits and missed meals by a steady progression of economy and sound investment, of long nights and hard work, Valance had plunged from comfort like a star, and been obligingly reset in the firmament. 

And Valance was still smarter, brighter, more beautiful than any of the rakes and harlots around him. He wore a Court coat of flame red chased all over with silver thread, whose colour seemed to light up all the brown in his fair hair. On one of his shoulders leaned a slim, pretty, young man whose lips were busy kissing Valance’s neck, while on his other side a woman of questionable virtue tugged at his sleeve and was rewarded with an absent caress. But neither of them had his attention, for his clear blue eyes searched the room, picking out his next target, gleaming like the butts of the duelling pistols he wore on his hip. He seemed some King from an elegant, savage era, or the lascivious prince from some dissolute Renaissance court, sipping his porter as untrustworthy petitioners danced to secure his favour, magnanimously affecting not to notice the hand that reached inside his shirt and fondled his nipple.

That he could behave so, that he could even contemplate visiting such a low dive after an evening spent in the presence of Serafina, Richard’s own Serafina, stirred something deep and dark within Richard’s chest. 

It was not that the man had no shame, for Richard had known that for years. It was that Valance was immune to any suggestion of a better nature, had not a scrap of purity left in him - nothing that could be uplifted, refined by the influences of virtuous woman.
 
No, rather than feel himself honoured by Serafina’s attention, rather than showing even the faintest touch of redemption, the little fop leaned back against the bar and thrust his hips out to the room, as though he were issuing a general invitation.

Richard shoved though the crowd, undeterred by the pampered voices of the muttering after him, “Hi, steady on old man,” and, “I say, who’s that cadet?” 

There was nothing left of that fond nostalgia, not a trace of desire for the wretched creature he was seeking. There was no wish, even, for his own to be that hands that broke that face, no desire to hear the impact of fists on flesh. 

No. 

It would be cleaner, more final. There would be the report of a single pistol, the flowering of blood over the heart of that white, silk shirt. Fury cleared his mind of everything except Serafina, of the tears upon her face or her desperate, evasive glances - she who was wont to look and speak so very frankly, who seemed so balanced and resistant to passion and its turbulence. This man, this creature, had seen fit to torment her, to toy with her emotions, to inflict his loathsome presence upon her for no greater purpose than his own amusement. 

Knocked, and jostled, Richard elbowed his way forward, leaving a trail of insults, of spilled drinks, soaked shirts, and irritable whores. One or two tried to latch on to him, but he knocked them aside, no longer cringing Richard the bank clerk, but once again Thornton the implacable, the terror of the Lower school. 

Before Valance had corrupted him. 

At last, he stood before Edward, a tall man in sober clothes, his face without expression, his pale eyes flashing with judgement as he said in his coldest voice, in his Prefect’s voice, “Valance.”

For a moment, Edward affected not to notice him, gently brushing away the touch of another insistent kiss, pouting and mouthing some lewd promise. Then he rolled his eyes around in an exaggerated way, lighting on Richard and swaying up to standing. It was a show, a little pantomime to make it clear that this was his territory, that he was the monarch here, the authority, the one to be petitioned, and that he was an inebriated tyrant, a fool who would brush away quarrel and complaint with a contemptuous laugh. 

But his blue eyes flashed, clear and sober and dangerous. 

“Why, Dickie!” Valance cried, “Oh, now, it’s been an age. What a wonder to find you here. Come now, make yourself at home.” He licked his lips. “And join us for a little drink.”

“I am not in the celebratory mood.”

A laugh, just as jeering as Richard had expected it would be. “Why, old Upright isn’t in the convivial mood.” He batted his lashes at his acolytes. “How terribly predictable.”

Richard said nothing, amid general hilarity.

“Come, sir,” said Valance, in a tone still overlaid by jest and laziness, but one that carried altogether more force. “I insist.”

“I have said no, Valance.”

“Why, didn’t you know Dickie? A ‘no’ is just an ‘yes’ playing at coyness.”

Richard felt the words slap against his face. Did Valance recall every barb he had been subjected to in that hot, poisonous youth of theirs?

“Something I say disagree with you, Dickie?"

“I would not discuss our business in public, sir.”

But Valance merely laughed again, a jarring, affected sound, “Sir, is it, Dickie? Why, you’re a little behind the times, old chap. Come now. Properly, that should be ‘my Lord’.”

“As I have said, sir, I have no intention of discussing our business in public.”

In the immediate space around them, there was a gradual silencing of the laughter and the licentious comments.

Valance smiled slowly, hand going to his belt, “Are you trying to insult me, Dickie?”

Richard said nothing. He knew what would happen next.

But no, Valance, damn him, laughed again, bringing back all the jokes and joviality to the wanton circle surrounding him. At the fringes, though, spreading throughout the tavern, there was a more general type of silence. Richard put his shoulders back and refused to buckle under the weight of all the glances measuring him. 

“Why, I believe you are, old man.” Valance clapped him on the shoulder. “But how could I be insulted by you, my sweet Dickie Bird? Not after all that we’ve shared. Gentlemen and…” he paused, presumably for effect. “Ladies. I give you the one, the only, the notorious Richard Thornton. My tutor in so many things of value, yes, the inimitable Dickie Upright himself.” Valance raised his porter with a vulgar gesture, and a whole new host of observers began to watch them. “I could tell you some of the reasoning behind his deserved reputation, but I’m afraid even an audience such as this would be forced to silence me. All I can say is, to old friends, and to my Dickie.” He drained his tankard.

“I do not have a glass, sir.”

“Well, whose fault is that, old man? Very well. A pint of the best for our Upright Thornton, Jess.”

“And I will not drink with you, sir.”

“Oh, come now,” said Valance, and set his mug down upon the bar. “I won’t have this tonight. Not even from you.” He raised himself from the slouch which he had resumed, standing on his feet, light, like a dancer, “I have had the most charming evening, you see. Good friends and company here, a most agreeable supper, and, would you believe, the sweetest little dainty to accompany me to the dullest orchestral performance I have endured in-”

“I would advise you to shut your mouth, sir.”

“Do you have kin in the pit, Dickie?” Edward gave him a sly, knowing glance. “The playing was most adequate. Please, send them my compliments.”

Richard’s hand went to his cane. 

Valance watched it.

“Fortunately, however,” he said, just as bright, but quieter, “I found myself a rather more pertinent feature of interest. Right there in my box, Dickie.”

“I have warned you, sir.”

“Warned me about what, Thornton? Really. I am merely praising a most delightful girl.” He said it as ‘gel’, provoking. “But you know, now that I think on it, such a sweet, biddable nature really deserves more service than my inadequate tongue can give her. Wouldn’t you say so, Dickie?”

“I believe you have said rather too much, sir.”

“No, no. Funny, but I feel I haven’t said nearly enough.” He raised his voice so that the whole tavern might hear him, “Gentles all, I have spent this evening in the very lap of,” and he paused, licking his lips to the scattered cheers, “fortune. I have seen, spread out and exposed before me…” he smiled at Thornton, “all the virtues. And the name of the paragon who has revealed herself to me,” and he waited for the laughter to die down, “who has unveiled the full glory of her… rectitude… is none other but the incomparable Miss…”

Richard snatched the gage from his belt and slapped it down at Edward’s feet.

Around them, silence.

“Why, Dickie bird,” said Valance, softly. “You appear to have dropped your glove.”

“Retract that last, sir,” said Richard Thornton.

Edward Valance raised his empty glass to his lips and said in mocking tones, “What last, sir? Why? Would you have me shy from complimenting a lady?”

“I would, sir.”

“Why, sir, would you have me insult the lady in question?”

“I would find you speaking of her an insult, regardless of your choice of words.”

“You would find insult in my words, sir, regardless of their meaning?”

“I would, sir.”

Edward glanced about himself with long lashed eyes, as though daring others to view him as harmless. “How terribly fascinating.” Then, looking back to Richard with a countenance like steel, “Objectionable little fellow, aren’t you Thornton?”

“Were my gage not lying there, sir, I would cast it again.”

“For what insult?”

Richard drew a deep breath. “Sir, your very presence is an insult to me.”

“Is it now?” With a flash of those brilliant eyes, he was Valance of the fourth again, bright and malapert, and ready to be broken. “Oh, Dickie, you wound me. After all these years.”

“You believe I am jesting, sir? You think I sport with you?”

“Oh, no. No, that wasn’t my intention, Dickie. You’re hardly renowned for your sporting nature.  Your Miss Tooting, however…” 

Edward was knocked aside as Richard’s struck his face, but he recovered, leaned back against the bar, laughing.

"Now, now, Thornton. Let’s not brawl like common labourers. We’re gentlemen. Or so I was once told.”

Richard tried to control the rage that was surging inside him. “My gage. Lies. There. Sir.”

“And so it does,” and Edward looked down to it, lowering those long, pale lashes of his to see where it lay upon the floor, then bringing his gaze back up again, slowly, over Thornton’s shoes, his trousers, the way they were smeared by mud. The tavern stood in almost complete silence. “You insist, then, sir? A duel of honour?”

“If you are not too much of a coward to meet me.”

And for one, still second, Edward met his eyes. On his face was a look of peace and pleasure, of satisfaction giving way to wild delight. 

Richard had never seen him look so completely pleased with himself. 

“Oh, Dickie bird. You never do disappoint, do you?”