I held up a hand. “I never actually said no. You didn’t let me get that far.”

“Were you going to say yes?” He sounded skeptical.

I raised my arms and let them drop. “I’ll never know, because you got an attitude and walked away.”

“Are you seriously going to lecture me on having a bad attitude?”

I gasped. How dare he?

I got closer to him, though even at my full height I was dwarfed by his frame. “You know I could have you punished for speaking to me that way, right?”

“So now you’re going to bully me? First you reject me, then you use me for a little snippet of entertainment on the Report, and now I’ve had to spend my entire morning tracking you down after you told me you would meet with me during breakfast.”

“You’re one person out of twenty! I have work to do! How self-centered can you possibly be?”

His eyes widened, and he pointed at his chest. “Me? Self-centered?”

I tried to tuck my heart away, refusing to let him hurt me. “You know, you were one of my favorites. I was going to keep you around for a long time. My family liked you, and I admired your talent.”

“I don’t need your family’s stamp of approval. You were nice to me for all of an hour, then you disappear and it’s like nothing happened at all. I have the freedom to leave, and I’m ready to go.”

“Then go!”

I started walking away. I didn’t have to endure that.

He yelled down the hall, taking one last stab at me. “My friends all told me I was crazy to put my name in! They were so right!”

I kept going.

“You’re pushy! You’re selfish! What was I thinking?”

I turned a corner, even though it didn’t lead to where I was going. I could find my way eventually. I held it in, keeping the brave face I’d always been taught to have. No one could know how much that hurt.

After a trip that took twice as long as it should have, I finally made it to the third floor. I started crying the second I hit the landing, unable to stay composed any longer. Baden’s words repeated themselves in my head, and I clutched my stomach, feeling them like literal blows.

Before any of the boys had shown up, I’d had a list of ideas for how to get rid of them. I’d planned on making them so angry they’d say plenty of the things Baden just had . . . but I’d done nothing to provoke him. And he said them anyway. What was so wrong with me that I got rejected simply for being myself?

And his last words did exactly what he wanted them to. It looked like I’d had millions of choices when I drew the names nearly a month ago. How many men hadn’t entered because they already objected to me on some level?

Did people think I was pushy? Selfish? Which were the public enjoying more: the sweet moments between me and the boys or the moments when I looked like a failure?

I straightened up to head to my room, only to see that Erik was waiting outside my door for me and had undoubtedly just watched my crying fit.

I swiped at my face, trying to clean it up, but there was no hiding the puffy eyes or red cheeks. Erik seeing me like this was almost as bad as the original issue, but the only way to make it seem as if it was nothing was to act as if it was nothing.

I walked over to Erik, achingly aware of the sadness in his eyes, and he bowed as I approached.

“I feel like maybe I’ve come at a bad time,” he said, the tiniest hint of sarcasm in his voice.

I smiled. “Ever so slightly,” I answered, acknowledging my hurt against my better judgment. “Still, I’m happy to help you if I can.”

Erik pressed his lips together, unsure if he should go on. “I wanted to talk to you about Henri. He didn’t send me!” he insisted, holding up a hand. “I think he’d come to you himself if he could speak on his own. But he’s embarrassed.” Erik swallowed. “He, uh . . . he told me about the kiss.”

I nodded. “I figured.”

“He’s afraid he’s crossed a line. He said something about holding on to you and that he probably should have let go, but then he didn’t and—”

I shook my head. “That makes it sound much worse than it was. He . . . we . . .” I stood there, lost. “We were trying to communicate, and when the words didn’t work, well, that did.”

For some reason I was upset admitting this to Erik, even though he already knew everything.

“So you’re not cross with him?”

I heaved out a breath, almost laughing because the idea was so bizarre. “No. He’s one of the kindest people I know. I’m not upset with him in the slightest.”

Erik nodded. “Would it be all right if I told him as much?”

“Absolutely.” I wiped at my eyes again, pulling off smudged eyeliner in the process. “Ick.”

“Are you okay, Your Highness?” His voice was so tender but, mercifully, lacking pity. I almost explained what had happened to him, but it was borderline inappropriate. It was one thing to talk about Henri; it was another to discuss the other suitors at length.

“I am. Or will be. Don’t worry about me; just make sure Henri is all right.”

His expression changed slightly, and I could see the weight of that role in his eyes. “I do my best.”

I studied him. “Henri really wants it, doesn’t he?”

Erik shook his head. “There is no ‘it.’ He wants you.”

After Baden’s heart-shattering speech, it was hard to imagine this was possible, but Erik confirmed it as he went on.

“He talks of you endlessly. Each day in the Men’s Parlor, I’m translating political science books to him or trying to explain the difference between the absolute monarchy you have here and the constitutional monarchy he grew up with in Swendway. He even—” Erik paused to chuckle. “He even studies the way your brothers walk and stand. He wants to be worthy of you in every way.”