Fly right off? Alfred's expression was half amused, half befuddled. "Why would you do that?" he asked earnestly as he headed for Evander's floo. Was she worried about going too fast? Afraid the wind would catch her dress and it would billow out like a parachute and pull her overboard? Or had she maybe heard someone say that it was bad luck to have women aboard ships and taken it too closely to heart? Alfred was still a traditionalist in that regard, in that he was always a bit suspicious of women embarking his vessel for any purpose other than being passengers, but it hardly applied to casual sailing for fun. It was taught as a pastime, after all, right up there with horseback riding for some English ladies — though generally not for the sort that he'd grown up around, truthfully.

He wasn't worried about anything bad happening to her during their little adventure, or else he wouldn't have invited her along on such a trip in the first place, but he was fairly curious to hear what she was worried about. Not so much because he thought there was any possible credence to it, but just because it would give him some insight into the way her mind worked, and the whole point of this was to get to know her, after all.