“I don’t even want to get married,” MacNair said defensively.

“Nor do I,” Wexford put in. “At least not yet. Your sister is safe from us, and I won’t joke about her anymore.” He rolled his eyes to punctuate the statement—which told Tobias he just wouldn’t joke about her marriage prospects in front of Lucien.

“You didn’t say anything.” Lucien speared Tobias with an expectant stare.

“I’ve no plans to marry my friend’s sister. Besides, she’s far too young for my taste.” She brought to mind the woman Tobias had planned to marry two years ago. Until she’d accepted someone else’s proposal first. The entire affair had been humiliating. He’d believed they were perfectly suited only to discover her father preferred another suitor, the heir to a dukedom. And when Tobias had suggested that they elope to Gretna Green, she’d revealed herself to be a woman lacking maturity and demonstrating a hunger for notoriety. “I would prefer to court a lady who is not in her first Season. I might even prefer a widow.”

“I suppose that removes your ward from consideration,” Wexford noted.

“You can’t jest about that either,” Tobias said. “She’s my ward. That would be…improper.” He picked up his brandy glass and looked around the table. “Now, give me some names. I don’t have much time.”

“Six weeks?” MacNair asked over the rim of his glass.

“Five.” Tobias winced. He couldn’t lose his mother’s house, the location of every single one of his happy memories. He’d been sixteen, away at school, when she’d fallen from her horse. Her death had been utterly shocking, and the loss had left a hole in his heart that had never fully healed. Losing the childhood home that he’d shared with her would be a devastation he didn’t want to contemplate. That his father had put him in this predicament—using the place Tobias loved most to bend him to his will—had turned Tobias’s mild dislike of the man into seething contempt.

Wexford grunted. “Not much bloody time.”

“Precisely.” Tobias looked to MacNair beside him. “I need names.”

“You’re looking at me? A man with no interest in the parson’s trap?” MacNair laughed, then sobered when Tobias only narrowed his eyes. “Fine. What about Mrs. Drummond? She’s a widow.”

“She’s also at least fifteen years older than me. I need an heir.”

“Older women are quite lovely though.” Lucien grinned, and the other two chuckled.

“You lot are no help.” Tobias moved on to Wexford. “A name. And don’t be flippant.”

Wexford touched his chest. “Me? As it happens, I’ve an excellent suggestion—Miss Jessamine Goodfellow.”

Tobias tried to recall her and couldn’t. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing that I know of. She’s just a wallflower. She has two younger sisters who are already married.”

“How do you know her?” Tobias found it odd that he wasn’t aware of her while Wexford, who was every bit a rake, was.

“I go to Society events,” Wexford said with a measure of exasperation. “I am certain I danced with her once or twice last Season. If I remember correctly, she is rather intelligent. Didn’t mutter a thing about any of the Fs.”