Ozymandias' frustration was evident in his heavy sigh. She clearly did not understand the situation, but of course that was by design. He'd said someone would inherit after him, and so far as she knew the most likely someone was a distant cousin, or something of the sort. If that were the case he might not have felt so inclined to dabble in parenting for the sake of preventing it. A credible bastard might very well have a better claim to the estate than a distant cousin, though, and he had no intention of handing his family's name over to the son of a ballerina.

"You had to have expected this," he argued. "When you married someone with an inheritance. You aren't stupid."

---

Oz was unsure what else to say; he'd exhausted most of the arguments he'd planned already. He hadn't expected this level of resistance... though in hindsight he probably ought to have. He'd known neither of them wanted children, and Thomasina was nothing if not stubborn. Even so, he'd expected that she would have capitulated once she'd realized he was really serious about the idea.

Having exhausted his supply of rational arguments he turned instead to pettiness. "We can talk about this when you're feeling more reasonable."

---