Incarceration

Voices outside the cell where Nash paced halted him in mid-step. He flung himself onto the hard bunk and closed his eyes, focusing on the voices. One was his jailer, the little red-headed arsehole who brought him his meals and needled him about being a sodomite. The other voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it because the speaker had gone to the trouble of trying to disguise his voice. He spoke in a harsh, rasping whisper that still managed to give Nash the sense that he knew the person.

“You’re sure he’s here?”

The whisper had an angry quality to it that made Nash wonder what had happened.

“Yes. I took his supper in not an hour ago, sir.”

The other man made a frustrated sound. “Check on him. Now!”

Nash lay still and made his breathing even out, pretending to be asleep. He knew the man with the familiar voice wouldn’t show himself. He never did. In the few days Nash had been held captive, the only people he ever saw were the red-headed man and a huge burly guard with a bowler hat and a fantastic mustache. He had no idea who had ordered his capture or why he was being held. It wasn’t for a ransom because his father or grandfather would have paid it by now even if his mother wouldn’t have.

The scrape of leather soled shoes on the stone floor was the only hint that he was no longer alone. Keys clanged against the metal bars and Nash opened his eyes. The red-headed man glared at him for a moment and then turned on his heels and left. In the anteroom, the two men spoke in lowered voices that still carried clearly to Nash.

“He’s there, sir. Just as I said,” the red-headed man reported.

The other man growled. “Then who the hell was at the DeHaviland ball?”

“I don’t know, sir. Are you sure the man looked like our guest?”

A cracking sound echoed in the stone room and Nash figured the master had just slapped his flunky.

“The man I saw was the image of Nash Sutherland! Since it obviously wasn’t our guest, I need you to discover who was impersonating him. And make sure our guest is secure. In fact, tomorrow I want you to move him to the other location. Milord will be extremely angry if we don’t keep the good captain secure. He’s already had setbacks in his plans this week so we cannot afford to put a foot wrong with regard to the sky captain.”

“Setbacks?” The red-headed man sounded concerned. “Didn’t the search go well?”

“No, the search did not go well,” the man with the rasping whisper said in a furious tone. “Your men couldn’t find what we needed so they captured the Browns. Milord was not pleased and his wrath may yet fall upon our heads for mucking it up so make sure you don’t screw up with Sutherland!”

Footsteps echoed, growing fainter as the angry man left. After a moment, the red-headed man left as well and Nash stared at the ceiling pondering their conversation. Obviously, someone had masqueraded as him at the Imperial Sky Admiral’s ball. The only person who could possibly pull that off was Shelley, but Nash had no idea why Shelley would impersonate him.

After the first forty eight hours of his incarceration, when Nash was sure he wasn’t being held for ransom, he knew Jack would discover him missing and start searching. Not only did Jack have an impressive arsenal when it came to finding out information that no one wanted known, he also had eyes and ears in places most people would never have suspected even for an Imperial spy. However, the look-alike ploy didn’t sound like something Jack would do.

Nash knew for a fact that Jack had no knowledge of his half-brother. But Jack did know Anthony Banning despite not having spoken to the man in years. And Nash was fully aware that Anthony and his brother were lovers. It wasn’t much of a leap for Nash to surmise that Jack had gone to Anthony for help and Anthony had enlisted Shelley to impersonate Nash. He had to admit, it was a stroke of genius on Anthony’s part if the whispers of his jailers were anything to go by.

Now, they would be moving him which was Nash’s opening to try to escape. He’d spent the last five days listening to everything spoken within his earshot and he’d determined that “Milord” —whomever he might be— was not someone who worked on the right side of the law. He had been searching for something important, something discovered by a pair of itinerant inventors named Brown. Apparently, the red-headed arsehole’s men had bungled their most recent search by getting caught in the act and they had kidnapped the inventors.

The taking of the Browns made Nash wonder if he had also been some sort of mistake. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that it wasn’t the case. The men who had nabbed him had not been interested in anything but him. They hadn’t searched his hotel room or even his suitcase. They had been there solely to take him prisoner. Which begged the question of why Milord wanted him.

He had not been questioned so their reasons for taking him obviously had nothing to do with his relationship with Jack or his friendship with Emmett Montgomery, Earl of Bridgewater and firearms inventor whom he had dined with the night he’d been taken. It also had nothing to do with his grandfather the Marquess of Lytton, a well known airship builder. And they either knew nothing about his mother’s reputation as a sorceress or they put no stock in the arcane, otherwise they would have been deathly afraid of any spell she might cast to find him.

What his kidnappers did know was that he fucked men. The red-headed arsehole took great delight in calling him a sodomite and constantly threw barbed comments at him about being less of a man for preferring the embrace of men over women. That told Nash that his captors knew quite a bit about him because his predilection for men had always been something he’d kept low key.

Until Jack.

Nash sighed aloud. Six months with Jack Starr had thrown his caution to the wind. Their love affair hadn’t been in the least discreet since they met on board Nash’s ship The Star Seeker. Nash’s three trips to London since meeting Jack had been all about the furtherance of his relationship with the spy. He’d never been in love before so it was to be expected that he might not use quite as much caution in his actions as he usually did. As a sky pirate, he did have a price on his head after all. The fact that his captors hadn’t turned him in for it told him they didn’t particularly care about money or which side of the law he operated on.

Again, Nash wondered why he had been taken. Not for money or his connections. No one had grilled him about his association with Jack or Emmett the only two people he knew who might be involved in something decidedly back alley. And until now, his connection to Shelley Jefferson had been kept quiet. Of course, after Shelley’s deception this night, their relationship might come to light. Nash wasn’t worried about it as neither of his parents particularly cared about his bastardy and his clutch of half-siblings. They had neither broadcasted it nor hid it. Nicely tolerant of them, he thought sardonically.

With his thoughts brought back around to Jack, Anthony and Shelley, Nash pondered the curious twist of fate that had innocent first lovers Jack and Anthony ending up as the lovers of look-alike brothers. The relationships seemed almost incestuous, a thought that made Nash grin. Hopefully, those relationships would pay off soon because his chances for escape would narrow after tomorrow night.

If Milord’s flunkies were moving him it would be to someplace more secure than his current location. That was only logical. Whoever the raspy voiced man was, he’d had enough cache to have entrée to the Imperial Sky Admiral’s ball which could be why Nash had the niggling notion that he knew the man. And whoever Milord was, the raspy voiced man was high up in his organization since the man seemed to report directly to Milord.

Nash still had no idea why these people wanted him. He only hoped he could either manage to affect an escape when they moved him or that Anthony and Jack’s ploy to use Shelley as bait had flushed out the raspy voiced man. If Jack had any inkling who had taken him, he would use his impressive arsenal of skills and weaponry to find his lover. Nash had no doubt about Jack’s love for him or the spy’s skills. All he needed to do was lay back and wait for one of two things to happen in the next twenty four hours. Either he would manage to escape or Jack would find him.

Either way, Nash would end up back in Jack’s arms. A circumstance that could only make him smile, incarceration or not.

 

 

Lex Valentine Nash Sutherland