imagine stephen black and emma pole ending up alone together after emma gets taken by the gentleman, and she’s just lying on a couch looking listless and he’s in the room to get something or do some chore and all of a sudden emma can’t stand it anymore, she’s tried to tell everyone else what’s wrong with her but nothing ever comes out of her mouth but nonsense, and she takes a deep breath and tells stephen everything and they just stare at each other for a few seconds before she bursts into tears, relieved that she’s finally able to say it out loud to another person and furious because she knows stephen is as trapped as she is and neither of them can do anything about it, and stephen tries to comfort her rather awkwardly without actually touching her
imagine stephen black and emma pole at one of their early parties at lost-hope, and the gentleman is dancing with emma but he’s called away to deal with some fairy matter so he beckons stephen over and tells him to keep lady pole company until he returns, and stephen hesitates and is about to protest that he cannot dance with his employer’s wife, it wouldn’t be proper, but the gentleman has already bustled away. stephen doesn’t really want to disobey him, and emma is there watching him with that awful haunted look that never leaves her face these days, and he holds out his hands and she grips them tightly like a woman on the verge of drowning who’s trying not to slip further below the waves. her hands are freezing, and she says in a quiet, desperate voice, “talk to me, stephen,” so stephen starts to speak as calmly as he can about sir walter’s financial affairs and the footmen’s latest misadventures and which shops he visited yesterday, and eventually the dance ends and they move to one side of the room but emma doesn’t let go of his hands until the gentleman returns to claim her again
