Alfred laughed, sure that she was joking — then wondered if maybe she wasn't. The look on her face didn't suggest that it was entirely out of the realm of possibility, and given the context of everything they'd been talking about... well, why not? He'd already offered, with varying degrees of sincerity, to elope with her on more than one occasion. This wasn't any more crazy or spontaneous than one of those sorts of plans.

"Like in the paper?" he asked, his heart rate increasing slightly. "Or at a party, and make a big enough scene about it that they couldn't just pretend it hadn't happened?"