“Emma.” The fair, motherly voice called out. “Emma, dear!”
Stirrings lightly rumbled in the house. Something put down on a hard surface without much care, a door 's mechanism activated with considerable force, and while the footsteps that sounded afterwards weren't at a stomp, they were far from light. The widow had one leg over the other within her dress, a letter in her hand, looking up over her glasses at the doorway that soon had her grown daughter standing within it.
“If it's that bastard Earl, then-”
“Emma!” The girl crossed her arms and looked aside, one of her feet tapping loudly on the floor as her lips pursed in frustration and annoyance. “Really, is it any wonder that you've no suitor?”
“Who's to say I need one?” She shot back venomously. Silence grew between them as they looked to one another across the room, quite a few of the ornaments and pleasant little bits and bobs missing from the place they'd been when her father lived. Sold. The poor widow feared her most prized possession may be the next thing to be sold and there was little left to give before the house would be next; her cherished horse that her late husband had given her years ago when her daughter was only small.
“I do.” She said seriously, gravely, however her voice softened. “Do you really wish us to resort to the streets?” Her daughter looked away again. “If we continue like this, that's where we're headed.” The woman's thumb rubbed inside the free hand on her lap, the other still holding the letter, she was caressing the band of the wedding ring her late husband had given her. The thought sickened her but it, too, may have to be sold to stave off the debtors longer.
“This letter is from third Duke of Dawsbury-”
“That pig-?!”
“SHUSH!” The tapping of the girl's foot continued as once more she resigned her poisonous gaze away from her mother, eyes narrow, jaw clenched. “Time is running out, and you will not carry on this foolishness. He's a man of wealth, he's well read,” she moved the note in her hand causing the paper to give a crinkle sound, “he's well written, and he's mannerly-”
“Mannerly, mother?! He's a womanize-”
“He's mannerly!” She continued, her voice coming up to nearly a shriek as her eyes looked to her daughter with a mixture of fury and desperation. “He can keep, not only you,” she rattled off those last three words quickly, condescendingly, “but me as well.” Emma continued to tap her foot, arms crossed, looking away once more. “Are you so content with seeing your mother barter off her own wedding ring?!” Her voice croaked, eyes reddening and watering, the letter shuddering in her nearly clenched hand, her thumb no longer absent-mindedly toying with said ring.
Emma's features applied the smallest amount of antivenom to her look as she turned her stern face back to her mother, her desperate and scared mother.
“See... him.” She pleaded, before pursing her lips, her head reddening and shuddering with pent-up pressure as clear anger and disappointment filled her features, beyond her control. “I'll not have my daughter become some damn spinster and see to the end of our family legacy!” Emma's eyes widened, her jaw dropping, her crossed arms coming to her sides. Her mother let out a howled weep, her heels clacking along the floor as her daughter stepped aside for her to go to her bedroom, the letter thrust to the 'young' woman's chest. The Viscountess held the parchment to her bosom as she watched her hysterical mother turn to her bedroom, and Emma shuddered at the startling force with which the thick oak door had been closed.