A Quiet Affair

vcatrashfiend

Summary: Henry Higgins returns home from a month long symposium abroad to find his new wife in ill-spirits, his servants secretive, and his father-in-law an expecting father. In order to ensure the quiet calm he feels he is entitled to, Higgins resolves to get the bottom of the issue.

Rating: K+ for some mature themes, and mild cursing.

Disclaimer: I don't own the recognizable characters, but I am happy to be back, playing around with them once more!

A very special Thank You to my proofreader, Jacqueline who has been my faithful friend, ego booster, and fact checker for nearly five years now. You rock, my dear!

Prologue

"I washed m'face an' 'ands before I come, I did." Thus were spoken the words that loosened Professor Henry Higgins' chokehold on bachelorhood. He was not completely aware of the fact the first time it was uttered, Eliza's voice bristling with prideful indignation. The second time though…

He had known that he was not alone when he heard the gentle click of the grammar phone as it was turned off. His initial, fleeting reaction was righteous anger. How dare this person turn off her voice? The hours and hours of recordings were the only thing he had left of her, other than the jewelry from the Embassy Ball which had to be returned, and the ring from Brighton that did not.

That ring had been discovered on the mantle by Mrs. Pearce earlier that morning. Henry, caught up in the flurry of emotions that Eliza's disappearance had caused, abruptly snatched the ring from his faithful housekeeper's hand, and slipped it into his trouser pocket without so much as a word. The prospect of Eliza being gone had first started to sink in the moment he spotted Mrs. Pearce with the ring, and the urge to take everything and anything he could identify as hers and lock it up in a safe, selfish place for himself had reared its ugly head.

That feeling was nothing to the pure, vitriolic antipathy he felt towards intruder who dared to turn her off.

"I washed m'face an' 'ands before I come, I did." The second time in his life that those words were spoken to him, the tone was gentle and teasing nearly tinged with laughter on the edge of it, but not quite. Antipathy turned to a dizzying feeling of pure, undiluted joy.

"Eliza…" His façade of infuriating indifference broke for but a moment. He spoke her name as though it were manna, God, a prayer.

"Where the devil are my slippers?' He inquired, throwing on the old cloak of indifference, only this time, he matched her teasing tone as he sunk back into his old armchair, letting his hat slip over his eyes.

He nearly jumped from his seat when she lifted the hat away from his eyes and peered down at him. "We certainly have a lot to discuss, don't we Professor?"

And they did. A full month later, they were married. It was a quiet, unfussy affair at the courthouse. Pickering, the elder Mrs. Higgins, and Mrs. Pearce were in attendance, as well as (shockingly), Eliza's father and very young stepmother. The two latter showed up quiet intoxicated (not at all shocking), and Eliza silently thanked providence that she had lost the battle to be married in a church. Her father and stepmother reeking of gin and noisy with somewhat colorful commentary before God and God's employees would have been more than Eliza could have borne; although she came very close to dying of shame when her father loudly booed the chaste peck on the cheek Henry had given her at the end of the ceremony.

"I won't be gettin' any gran'children any time soon, by the looks o' things."

Eliza's stepmother had the temerity to snort, and then suggest that perhaps Eliza would have a brother or sister before she had a son or daughter.

Needless to say, neither were invited to dine at 27A later that evening.

After Colonel Pickering, Mrs. Pearce and Eleanor Higgins retired for the evening, Henry and Eliza found themselves facing a task that Eliza had not given much thought to. The prospect of said task had consumed Henry ever since Eliza had agreed to become his wife after their very long discussion. He was not exactly a novice in these matters. His father had taken him to a richly appointed brothel in Paris during his tour of Europe many, many years ago, and since then there had been a few dalliances, one of which had cemented his resolve to remain an asexual bachelor until the day he died. It hadn't ended in heartbreak so much as irritation and a temporary cash flow problem. Damnable opera dancers.

The point was, virgins had never been his expertise.

Eliza and Henry sat on the edge of his bed in their nightclothes. Eliza, looking prim, pale, and covered in soft lace down to her ankles and up to her neck and wrists. Her hands were shaking slightly, and she was maintaining a safe distance between them. Henry silently cursed himself for not giving her at least a proper kiss leading up to this moment to prepare her. The arrangements for the marriage had been hasty, perfunctory, and altogether unromantic.

"Eliza… has anyone – errr…"

"Has anyone approached poor motherless Eliza and tried to explain lovemaking?" She queried, not looking up from the trembling hands in her lap.

"Precisely."

"Oh yes. This morning my stepmother, Eulalie – who is at least three years younger than me – started to go into some very alarming facts; however, your mother happened upon us and interrupted what I can only describe as a very… colorful explanation of facts, and interceded with her own gentler and slightly scientific explanation."

Henry's face flushed with the level of embarrassment once can only achieve from finding out that one's parent was dispersing advice on bedroom matters. "Oh."

"But not before Eulalie slipped me this." Eliza stood up and walked over to the nightstand, opened the drawer and retrieved a slim, cheaply bound book. Without looking at it, she handed it to Henry, who paged through it for about a quarter of a second before dropping it to the ground in shock.

"Oh."

"Have you ever seen the like?" Eliza inquired, her voice mortified and shrill.

Henry had, in fact, seen the like. The night before the nuptials, Pickering had taken Henry out for a few drinks. Several hours later, red-faced, jolly, and giggling at the mischief of the situation, Pickering had slipped him a copy of the exact book Eliza had shown him. He had also come across several versions of it, mostly when he was attending University.

"That is India for you, old chap!" Pickering had declared, clapping his friend on the back.

…But Henry was not about to remove Pickering from Eliza's pedestal of esteem by shattering his genial, sober old gentlemen façade… nor would he jangle his new bride's nerves by insinuating that he was even a tenth more worldly than she. Not in this instance, at least.

"Never."

"And another thing; we agreed that continuing our association would only be proper if we were married, did we not?"

Henry furrowed his brow. "What has that got to do with anything?"

Eliza sat down on the bed once more, maintaining an even greater distance than before. She placed a slim hand on one post and avoided eye contact with Henry. "We would not have to do… we would not have to do that if we did not want to. I assumed you entering into matrimony with me was to uphold propriety, particularly for your mother's sake, since she is so involved in society. You would not have to make love with me if you do not wish… I don't require it."

Henry stood up in one quick, violent motion. "Madam!" Eliza jolted at the anger in his tone, her eyes widening and her mouth opening to reply with a protest she could not fully form. In short, she was baffled. "Are you insinuating that I gave up on a very comfortable life as a bachelor for reasons of 'keeping up appearances'?" He was very near shouting.

Eliza got to her feet, quicker than a shot. "What else am I to believe? You haven't even kissed me properly!" She began to pace, her temper quickly matching, than surpassing his own. "I came back that day telling you I could not sever our acquaintance by marrying Freddie, that I would not marry Freddie, that I would miss you too terribly to be separated by your pride! I was pouring my stupid squashed cabbage leaf heart to you and you said 'Well, we ought to marry. Tongues will wag if we do not'."

"And they would! I was thinking on your precious reputation you silly thing."

Eliza was now standing mere inches away from him, glaring up at his befuddled face. "Exactly! If you have no romantic inclinations towards me, than let's not do this."

He was upon her in an instant, one hand pressing against the small of her back in order to guide her against him, the other hand cupping the nape of her neck. His lips descended upon her in a kiss that was anything but dutiful. When they pulled away, her hair was mussed, her lips swollen, and her breathing heavy.

"I will never be the overly affectionate fool that your Freddie was, but I did not marry you in order to keep up appearances. If I wanted to stay a bachelor I would have stayed a bachelor and maintained decency by hiring you on as a member of my household staff-"

"As your maid?"

"-as my secretary. Do not get me wrong, Eliza; I may not give you the flowery language and open affection you desire in this marriage, but I will and do desire you as a husband does his wife."

"Like the couples in the drawings?" Eliza inquired teasingly, nodding at the book on the ground.

"I am an old man. Desiring you like the couples in that book could very well cripple me." Eliza opened her mouth to make a witty retort, but Henry stopped her with a kiss.

"Silence, woman. Allow me to completely disabuse you of the notion that this marriage of ours is a product of convenience and the need for propriety."

She allowed him, to their mutual satisfaction

Two Months Later

Henry was exhausted. The return trip from The Sorbonne had been a wretched one. Even a short journey on sea from Dover to Calais was, in Henry's estimation, wretched, overpriced and nerve-wracking.

What was more, he missed his wife. He had been away from her for a good month for this painfully dull symposium. They had returned from their honeymoon in Brussels, fully intending on using the symposium as an excuse to continue their adventures abroad, but Eliza had become quite ill at the prospect of more sea travel by time they returned, and he ultimately (reluctantly) left her at home. Although it pained him to admit it - and he would never admit it out loud- he realized that another long separation would be agony for him. He quite missed her presence and her voice; even though the latter did sometimes fall back into that dreadful cockney accent, and he missed her touch. This was a shocking admission for someone who had prided himself as being a bit of an asexual scholar.

Mentally shaking these feelings of longing, longing that had no place in his mind now that he was home, he opened the door and entered 27A Wimpole Street. He was encountered dour silence from all inhabitants, and his wife was not there to greet him.