Page 32 of Adored

“Are you okay, Mate?” he asked his man, touching his arm gently.

Gamble blinked.

Was he?

Honestly, he wasn’t one hundred percent sure. This was something to get accustomed to, and he was trying to catch up on the fly.

Poe had a very different life here.

Now, they both did.

All around them, the whole place was bustling with people, setting up for the Duke and Duchess of Gordon’s memorial service tomorrow night was going to be a big affair.

Apparently.

Then add in the party after for Poe, and Gamble was associating this to a coming out party for the new person in control of the estate.

This was going to be interesting, and Gamble knew it. Now, he had to get accustomed from going to a life where no one saw him as a ghost to being out in the open.

“I just didn’t expect it to be so…castle-y,” he admitted, “and with so many people around.”

That was the actual issue for Gamble. There were way too many people near him for his comfort.

Poe actually laughed.

That was the perfect way to put it, and he was well aware that this would be difficult for Gamble.

Oh, and he appreciated that he was trying.

As someone who grew up here, running around, skateboarding through the place—despite his mother’s yelling, it was definitely a castle and not something you lived with if you were born into a normal family.

Only, his family was anything but normal from an outsider. They were nobility, for what it was worth, and to him, it wasn’t worth a whole lot.

Give him some horses and his job helping soldiers any day of the week.

On one wall not far away, there was a tapestry with the family’s coat of arms, and Gamble was staring at it. Adorning it, there was a golden stag with a crown over its head. It had been there for so damn long.

Honestly, Poe knew it was also a bit much. If he and Gamble were going to live here for the rest of their lives, so many things would have to change.

Poe was going to have to Americanize the place for his man to adjust, and he was fine with that. Give him a big comfortable couch, and a big screen TV any day over a suit of armor that was outdated.

The only thing he wouldn’t change was the library because, well…

Books were a good thing.

As for the rest, it could go.

Dukes three hundred years ago were a different kind of nobility than they were now.

For Poe, it was more of a worthless title. While he was a citizen of the UK, and a dual citizen in America, he didn’t bow to a king anymore.

America had broken him of that, thankfully. Only, here, there were protocols, and he was going to have to get Gamble up to date on them.

FAST.

For the most part, Poe Seville-Gordon was a normal man, who had a job, and a life that he had loved.

Until he was sucked back into it.