Vera laughed, 'I will make my report appropriately detailed' she ventured with mock sobriety, She removed her fan from her coverlet, she twirled her fan in her left hand* and tittered for their audience but shot him a knowing look, their mothers were close enough to observe, but not enough to hear the material of their conversation.  'I should hate to disappoint them' she gestured with her fan to the mothers with an angling of her eyes and a suitably coquettish affect, so to the casual observer she would appear as a debutante hard at the work of being a social delight. 

'As to your report of me' she made a show of contemplating her answer, 'You should tell your friends whatever you think might be the most alluring.  If they wish for a social wife, tell them that, if they want a bore tell them that.' she said with finality, 'Because all debutante should want to be is amenable - I would be failing in my responsibilities otherwise'. Her tone in this was obviously sardonic and joking.  It was clear from this very obvious set up that her mother was desperate for more control over her romantic life - apparently her friendship with the eloping Fitz and Camilla had frightened her mother sufficiently to begin doing these little set ups - worried, as she seemed to be, that Vera would elope with a halfblood and the Flint portion of Eugenia Blackwood nee Flints fortune would be lost. 

'You realise your tactical error don't you?' she asked sipping her tea, ever the gamesman.

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