John shook his head. ‘You lost nothing,’ he said passionately. ‘Johnnie died thinking that kings were glorious heroes, not time-serving lechers. He died because he could not bear to live in the new world that the time-servers were making. And it was me that did this; not you. I did it all from my own folly. Because I thought Ashmole was cleverer than me. That’s why I was glad to be his friend. That’s why I wanted his help with the catalogue of the treasures. And now I wish to God I had inherited my father’s caution as well as his treasures. Because I could not keep the one without the other.’

‘It might fail,’ she said. ‘This – paper. We could say you were drunk when you signed …’

‘I would have to prove more than being drunk. I would have to prove that I was mad for it to fail,’ he said. ‘And being a fool is not the same as being mad.’

‘We could cut off the seal, and the signature, and deny it …’

He shook his head again, not answering for a moment. ‘We can try but he has the law on his side, and he knows the lawyers. I think there is no escape from my folly. I have failed you and I have failed my father.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I had no heir,’ he continued with deep sorrow. ‘No-one to come here after me. And now there will be nothing here, anyway.

‘I thought my father’s name, my name, my son’s name would live forever,’ he said wonderingly, looking out over the dark garden, thinking of the riches hidden safe in the frozen soil, waiting for the sun. ‘I thought everyone who ever planted a garden would know of us three, would be glad of what we had done. I thought every garden in England would grow a little brighter because of the plants we had brought home. I thought that as long as people loved their gardens and loved trees and shrubs and flowers there would be people who would remember us. But I have thrown it all away. My life’s work, my father’s life’s work: it will all mean nothing. Elias Ashmole will have it all and we will be forgotten.’