Dust has glazed that gold gown, he notices, rambling on and on, watching her nod. It's all going so smoothly and he can just imagine her mind formulating a routine around his orders.
"Oh! And you will skin the children I hunt for their pelts."
There. Live entertainment. Face pales, body tenses...cups crash to the floor? He would have to remind her maids are meant to make places cleaner. "That one was a quip. Not serious." Chuckling at her confusion, her horror subsides into a relief. She stoops down to pick up her mess...now she's catching on...but in no time distress is upon her again.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry, but, er, it's chipped." She holds it up to him with trembling hands, her lips rolling in and out of her mouth deciding what to say, if anything. "You, y-you can hardly see it." She tilts the cup towards him to show him the enormous gash he was hardly supposed to see just dying to draw blood from any innocent or not-so-innocent tea-drinker. Of all the girls in all the known kingdoms, if this one turned out to be clumsy then, well, at least the crashes and bangs and possible cracking of bones would at least provide some background noise.
"Well, it's just a cup," he says with a shake of his head. Sighing, she sets it back on the tray with the others.