Oz arched an eyebrow at her. The flowers on their own were not especially damning; it might have been nothing more than a whim for her to have brought them. The unexpected gift coupled with such a fawning question were highly suspicious. If he had required something then he would have already gotten it. He'd lived here most of his life and knew all the servants better than he knew the ones in his London house. He wouldn't have stood on ceremony and waited for someone to come host him, he would have already rang for it. So she was trying to butter him up, and she wouldn't have done that without a reason. She was angling for something.

He paused to consider. It was tempting to push this little charade and see how many things he could demand of her before she would tire of placating him and get around to whatever it was she wanted... but on the other hand, if she got out with it quickly, he could get back to the paper faster. Working at the Ministry he was sometimes busy enough that he didn't get the paper fully read for two or three days after it had been published, and had a stockpile of previous issues to work through on the weekends; he valued his paper-reading time quite highly these days. Directness won out. He folded the paper down to signal that she had his attention. "What is it you want, dearest mother of mine?"

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