He offers her a bow. "I'd not dream of having it any other way." That is not, truthfully, a lie; he wants her to start so he can get a sense of the gravity of the questions he can get away with. No good leading with what is your role in the war effort if all she's going to ask is do you think I'm pretty. Not that he thinks she'll ask that. She's deliciously, refreshingly frivolous in a way that does his heart good, but she's not stupid. She won't ask something with a foregone answer.

"Ask away, milady."