WTF! 60+ follows and 20 reviews, you guys seriously rock. Thank you so, so much.

I got a BETA for this story *does a jiggly dance*.

Amidst a round of applause and shower of rose petals, let's welcome … Ray Alexander:Beta extraordinaire, she is super talented.

And to answer some of your questions-

Hey girl!- You will know about it in the subsequent chapters and yes, there will be Theo/Daphne's POV. it's their story too.

Greengrass-Nott: Nah, Draco, and Theo are both A-grade bastards. And Theo is NOT in love with Daphne YET but we will get there. So will, Draco with Hermione. When you have two impossible and strong women then everything is possible.

Deepthinker- I agree I went a bit over the top there, but I have read instances where marriage crazy mamas have hidden their scantily clad daughters in the rooms of Dukes and Marquees in the hope that they get caught. At that time, it really was frowned upon if an aristocratic male compromised an aristocratic female (women were nothing but pawns, the whiter the marriage, longer the groom's title), duels were fought and all that shit. And the poor accused sod had to marry the girl.

Guest- the chapters are longer than I usually write (I am used to writing 1-2k chapters) so once weekly updates.


It took Draco a solid hour, an inhuman lady-like shriek from his valet, a half bath, and a full pot of tea before he looked sober enough that he could have attended the parliament and no-one would have been the wiser. He let his valet fuss over his waistcoat and his cravat and his hair before he could ask the most pressing question.

"Thomas, has my Mother retired for the night?" the question sounded slurred at the beginning but by the end, it had attained its usual articulation.

"Yes, My Lord, I saw to it myself." Thomas, his valet replied.

The old man so very different from Winston. His wizened face was lined with lines, both of laugh and experience. Unlike the silent butler, this one was damn mouthy. He had an opinion on everything, starting from who slept with whom to the latest designs in cravat folding. Draco found he respected him more for that. In the world filled with nodding heads and prostrate postures, someone who had the guts to tell him that the color mustard looked ghastly on him, was a warm welcome.

"And there was no … uh … incidents? She took her medicines?"

"No, and yes. The new nurse seems to be good at what she does. The Duchess had her medicine and then fell asleep," Thomas replied as he tied the cravat in a neat manner.

Not even one soul knew about his mother's condition except Theo, Winston and his valet, Thomas. But after that horrific incident, Draco had acquiesced and hired a highly regarded nurse to care for Mother. Though she was a bit young to his eyes, but Theo had asked around and she had come with good references.

"My Lord, will you be gone for the night?"

"What? No. No, I will be back in an hour or so to retire for the night. You can go and seek your bed. I will take care of the rest."

"But there is no need of that, my lord, I can wait." Thomas always had a spark for stubbornness, since the day Draco had hired him, and again, it was one of the things the young Lord found that he liked about his new valet.

"Thomas! Sometimes you are worse than a mother hen. I am not so much of an invalid that I can't get out of this simple outfit," Draco huffed good-naturedly at the old man.

The faster he dealt with the problem the faster could fall into his bed and with thought rolling around in his head. He continued down the corridor, using his usual quick stride to get him as quickly as he could. He found he just wanted to sleep. To rid himself of the day that had occurred previously. He stopped just outside the blue room and took in a deep breathe, with all the things happening in his life he had no patience to coddle or indulge yet another distressed mistress. She would just have to go.

Was it the widow that he had taken last month? No, she was a respectable lady of the society and had her own secrecy to think about. No, no, this must be the volatile blond who he had shagged into the mattress last week. Though she was beautiful enough to arouse a eunuch, she hadn't had much going in the brain department and her shrill voice was enough to shatter his eardrums...

What he needed was to stop shagging these silly bints. Those blissful moments of thrusting into those nubile bodies weren't worth the headaches they left him with later on.

The first thing he observed when he entered the room was a mass of riotous brown curls. He frowned at the lack of bonnet and thought back. As far as he could remember he had never bedded a brunette, his taste ran more towards blonds scattered with the occasional red-heads or ravens. She was standing with her back facing the door preventing him from seeing her face. Her petite figure was clad in a gown, though the style was of many seasons back the quality was good. With her ram-rod straight back and stiff posture, it didn't look like she was here in her own accord.

Draco cleared his throat in order to gain her attention and stalked into the room leaving the door open. She turned in a snap with a slight yelp as if she wasn't expecting him. Her frightened eyes widened and Draco realized that they were brown too.

As if just remembering that she was standing in front of a duke, she hastened to bend to give a clumsy curtsy. And in the haste to curtsy, her flailing elbows knocked over the priceless vase kept on the nearby table. Draco winced as both of them looked in a trance waiting for the vase to either stop moving or topple over the edge. Draco was pretty sure that vase was a part of the family heirloom and before the vase could meet its untimely gory death, the woman grabbed it with her hand and steadied it back on the table. She bit her lip softly, as if embarrassed.

"Pardon my ungainliness, My Lord," she said with a gasp. Her voice was sort of broken, the way one sounds when one had been keeping mum for a long time, but it was pleasant nonetheless.

Draco took in her appearance and all he could come up with was, she was completely unremarkable. She was tiny, barely reaching up to his chest. And she was … she was just muddy all over. Right from her mud-coloured hair to her mud coloured eyes and even her gown was of a vomit-inducing horrid brown that had streaks of mud splattered near the hem and to top it off it was ill-fitting like she had donned the clothes of someone else. Her gloves looked like they had seen better days as they were frayed around the edges with a bit of visible needlework depicting that the thing had been mended, and re-mended repeatedly in the past.

The sad-looking bonnet was clasped in her small hands getting twisted and distorted in her death-like grip. Well, that explained why the first thing he observed was her hair. They were curly, not the gentle waves that the ladies of the ton loved to sport. Draco never understood the allure of those fashionable hair coiffeurs which needed the heavy-handed use of heating plates. Sometimes while waltzing in some tedious ball with some tedious lady he could still smell the heavy odour of singed hair. But this woman's hair was wild. Insane and completely out of control bursting around her face like an uncontainable firework and, she smelled of roses. Like the manor gardens when the roses in it were in full bloom filling the air with their cloying and heavy scent. And she smelled of something else, something familiar, something warm, but for the love of god he couldn't recall.

She was still wringing her bonnet and Draco had no patience or the penchant to lengthen the impromptu meeting. If she had come looking for employment then the right person to talk would have been his butler because he was the one who took care of that part of the upkeep.

"If you are looking for an employment, Miss, then I suggest you take it up with my butler, I don't take those matters into account," Draco said with a frustrated sigh, his lethargic mind wasn't ready for this.

"No, no, I didn't come looking for employment. Well, not completely. I just … I know you don't know me, My Lord, but if you could listen-" her words stumbled upon each other in a hurry to get out.

Draco nodded towards the settee for her to take a place as he himself took a seat opposite and far enough from her. He was bored already, tired too, for his day had been long and strenuous, but he had the grace to listen to the young woman in front of him. "How about you start from the beginning, Miss-"

"Miss Granger. Hermione Jean Granger."

"Forgive me, Miss Granger, but I know no one of such family," he replied politely.

"Oh, it wasn't you I was insinuating, My Lord. It was regarding the late duke of Wiltshire-"

A flash of blind fury raced through his veins. So she was of his father's whores. By now he had compensated so many mistresses of his father but they still kept coming up like weeds in his mother's favorite rose garden.

"If it's about your contract, then I advise you talk to my manager," his voice turned harsh as he answered.

"I did, My Lord. Of course, that was the first thing I did. But he- I-," she took in a breath as if willing for the dread to reside back. "My-my Lord, Rose Villa is everything to me. It was the last thing of my mother and I hold it very dear to my heart. My father lost it to yours in a card game. And by next month if I don't return back the due debt I would lose it forever. Please if you could find it your heart to give me some more time."

It took a minute for Draco to grasp that he didn't owe her money rather she was in debt. He flipped through his mind trying to recall about any villa. And he did, he did remember a faint conversation with his estate manager about a quaint little country house named after a flower in the outer skirts of London. It was one of those things that his arse of a father had won rather than lose in those bloody gambling-hells.

"So I don't owe you money, rather you owe me? And there were no contracts drawn between my father and you?"

"Contracts? Between me and your father? But why?" she stammered. And then it dawned on her. Everyone knew in which situation such contracts were drawn between a man and woman who weren't married legally or in front of the eye of the God, it pleased Draco seeing the horror and anger colouring her face. "You thought- I would never! Why, that is a horrible thing to assume, My Lord!"

"Pardon me, Miss Granger. I have paid enough woman in the last couple of years to assume so."

"I am sorry if that is the case. But believe me I won't do such thing, ever," she replied solemnly.

Draco smirked at her outrage. He laughed humourlessly inside, everyone had morals and scruples and integrity until … until the right amount of pounds were dangled in front of them.

"Miss Granger, I don't think I can't do anything if my father won fair and square your house. You know how the game is played and I am sure your father knew the risk despite."

"I know, My Lord. But after your father the debt had passed on to you. So if you could extend some more time I would be really, really indebted. I am trying my level best. If you could just give me some more leeway-"

"And why would I do that, Miss Granger. Why would I help such a cowardly man who sent forth his own daughter to beg for his cause and that too to an unmarried man's house at this time of the night?"

"He didn't! I mean I came on my own will," she replied mulishly.

"Well, you are foolish than you look, Miss Granger. But do enlighten me what would I gain if I do so?" he drawled.

She was struck speechless for a moment.

Draco watched her silently, without giving out anything. She pulled in whatever strength that was left in her body as if she was getting ready to fight a battle.

"I was hoping that a man such as you would know what family means. Rose Villa might just be a sad little house to you amongst your bright and lavish manors but for me, it's my only home. I was born in it, grew up in it. It-it's the only thing left of my mother.

We fell into some inescapable difficulties and in a moment of weakness my father played into luck's fickle hands and lost. I know what my father did was erroneous and stupid but he is dead now and I can do nothing about it. If I could … if I could just save my home. I … please …-" her voice petered off as if whatever power she had amassed had finished.

And Draco laughed right in her face.

"I am sorry for your father but I don't know what kind of newspapers you are reading or which kind of hole you have crawled out of if you think there is some secret gentle alter ego of mine that I have kept hidden inside. This is what you get, Miss Granger. The rake, the libertine, the cad. Inside and out. And however inspirational that monologue of yours maybe, I don't make deals where I don't gain anything. I have never done anything for the good of my heart and I don't plan to do so in the near future, or ever."

Her eyes glittered with tears pooling in them but none of them made it to her cheeks. She sat with her hands demurely clasped, spine straight, hands stiff, and with a slight stubborn tilt to her chin. She was an epitome of calm and tranquillity … on the surface at least. But those eyes they were shouting a completely different story. They told of the bone-deep desperation swirling inside them. And being someone so was intimately acquainted with that feeling in the last few hours, he understood. He knew how it felt.

"I- I could work for you? I could work as a housekeeper. I have managed Rose Villa sin- since my mother departed. Though it is not grand as this but I am determined enough to see it through," she stammered unsurely.

"I have a perfectly accomplished housekeeper, Miss Granger and I have no need for a new one," he replied drolly, he was becoming ever more bored of the unremarkable girl in front of him.

"I am very good in maths and I have a good penmanship too-"

"And I have a Manager who oversees those. I don't know how big your house or estate is, Miss Granger. But even if you managed my whole manor and wrote letters till your hands bleed you will need to work for me till you are dead to pay up the principal amount along with the towering interest," he said a tad unkindly.

"I am not afraid of hard work, My Lord. And I am willing to do anything to save my home. Please," hopeless desperation clung to her voice that she had tried to contain so hard inside her.

And something struck Draco's alcohol fused mind. His mind took hold of that unfinished thought and made a mad dash for it. He started calculating the pros and cons regarding it. The idea bounced around his mind and as seconds passed the idea took roots and grew into a mammoth damn tree.

Well, well, well. Looks like she was desperate, he was desperate. And if that wasn't a match made in heaven then he didn't know what was.

So he did what he did before every purchase, he thought how much profit she would bring him. And seeing as it was being his inheritance the gain for him was too much to be ignored.

Draco looked at her, taking in from her head to toe. Her language and behaviour were adequate. If not less she must have been the daughter of some country squire. Her manner, ignoring the initial clumsiness, were impeccable. She seemed educated and not that bad in the looks department. Well, she would need a personal seamstress and a lady's maid to tame that nest of a hair but nothing that a little money and polishing won't do. She would have never imagined herself snagging a member of the ton never mind a duke, what with her being from a lower class. So she would grateful and docile enough to not create any sort of trouble for him. And about that Villa that she had been harping on about. Well, he could give her that, he had no need for that paltry thing anyway.

Oh, yes she would make a passable albeit a bit dirty, if not perfect Duchess. And he could kill two birds with one stone. He would get his rightful inheritance back and get the perfect revenge on his father.

The late duke had always strutted like a peacock preening about his pure lineage that he could trace back to a century. And this woman was no gentry, had no aristocratic blood in her veins. So with the arrival of the heir, his bloodlines would be sullied enough. Oh, how his father would be rolling about in his grave. This was absolutely perfect.

"We will need a contract and perhaps a house for you later on-" Draco mused to himself.

She must have seen something in his expression because next thing he knew she had stood up and was shaking with something that resembled anger. Her eyes sparkled with anger turning her muddy eyes a shade deeper. Her wild hair had started crackling and she had puffed up trying to make herself look large and intimidating like some feral animal. If he hadn't been busy sorting out his thoughts he would have laughed at her inane display of anger. That would also have to go, proper Duchess didn't show emotion.

"When I said anything, I didn't mean that," she nearly spat on him.

"Seeing as I have yet to utter anything regarding that matter, Miss Granger, why don't you tell me what conclusion you have drawn from things that I haven't even said yet?"

"I – contracts- you- You want me to pay back by becoming your … your mistress!"

And at that point, Draco laughed. Again. He laughed even if there was no mirth in it. Oh, how daft and naïve this woman was.

"Oh lord no! I select my lovers who have a lot more refinement and sophistication than you could ever possess, Miss Granger."

Upon seeing her confused expression and her flushed face he explained with a wild glint in his eyes.

"No, I have a better or rather a worse proposal for you depends on how you see it."

Vanilla! It was vanilla, the other damning scent that he couldn't recall. That was the reason why she smelled like warm mornings where freshly baked bread and muffins graced the breakfast table. God, he sounded like a wuss.

And Draco knew who was to be blamed for what came out of his mouth next.

"I want you to become my wife, Miss Hermione Granger!"

It was the damn whiskey.

.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'

With half a dozen eggs tucked safely under one arm and a wad of unstitched swatches of fabrics from the seamstress under another, Hermione jumped around the puddles trying to keep her boots dry, or as dry as one could keep in this blasted rain. And mind you, it was not of those pitter-patter-sound-on-the-roof rain that reminds you of hot chocolates and warm blankets but it was one of those kinds of rain that hit you so hard in the face that it feels like a slap. And the worn umbrella held awkwardly between her shoulder and her neck gave little to no protection against the shattering rain.

Splash!

A hackney passed beside her drenching the front of her gown in brown dirty water. Well, no one would notice anyway what with the gown resembling the muddy colour. She sighed, this was one of her mother's least worn gowns and she understood why. The colour was horrible. So naturally the gown was the least mended and the only one in some condition to wear to when she are going to meet a duke who might just be the answer to her every problem.

The duke had arrived late and top of that had made her wait for over an hour. She had to miss the public hackney and had to wheedle a carriage driver to ride to her small town. It had cost more what she had calculated and sadly it looked like the repairs in the west wing would have to wait for a while. She had got off at the entry of her town and had peeped into the seamstress on her way and she had been kind enough to direct some extra work her way for some added money.

She hastened her steps lest another puddle deemed her sodding gown fair play.

"Ladies do not run, sweetheart." Her mother's soft voice sounded from far slowing down little Hermione's steps.

"But I am not a lady. I am just a little girl. Your little girl," she had chirped back with such innocence that can only be found in a child's heart.

"Oh, my dear heart! Not yet. But you will be one day. One day you will grow up to be the beautiful woman that you are."

"Like you, Mama?"

"Of course, just like your mother. Never seen a more beautiful woman ever in my life," her father has snuck up beside her mother and kissed her cheek before kneeling in front of her to reply.

Her mother had fondly tousled her hair. "And when you do. One day a knight in shining armour atop a white horse will stride in and rescue from the evil monster. Like in the stories I read to you last night."

"But Mother, I want to be the one who rescues the prince, on my pony. I want to be like the warrior princess like in the story that father read to me," she said patting her mother's hand condescendingly- as if she was the child in the relationship.

Her father had laughed, and when her mother had frowned, he had pulled her into a kiss.

Eurgh! She had scrunched her face upon her parent's antics that day…

She snorted thinking back. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. She certainly needed saving. Even though her steps slowed her mind didn't. She forced her brain to not think about what transpired in the Duke's manor not until she had her frozen fingers wrapped around a steaming cup of tea.

Slowly the shops and workshops became sparse and the number of people headed their way home with their head tucked underneath umbrellas became scanty as the stretches of green countryside lengthened. The rain didn't let up, making the visibility nearly zero but it was okay. It was okay because she knew the way to home like the back of her hand, or like the feel of the paper of her favorite book. She rounded a corner and her beautiful home came into sight

To an outsider, the Rose Villa might look dilapidated, ruined, cold, and in a dire need of restoration. But for Hermione it was security, it was love, it was warm. It was the smell of her father's cigar, the subtle trace of her mother's perfume. It was just … home.

She pushed open the rusty gate. The usual rusty screech of its hinges was drowned under the thunder rumbling in the sky. She hurried the last few steps now that the lower half of her gown was completely drenched.

Hermione didn't bother knocking the front door, there were only two people in the house and she was pretty sure they were huddled in the kitchen probably to save coal. She walked through the mud and slosh as she crossed the garden. The garden that was once filled with flowers upon which the villa was named, now housed a jumble of tubers and vegetable and herbs with the occasionally intercepted weed. She had to let go the gardener a long time ago.

The sturdy back door was barely visible and before she could knock the door opened and a pair of wrinkled old hands pulled her inside.


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