Page 210 of To Catch a Sub

Colette tried to pinch him but his thigh was too muscled.

“I also occasionally do some work for museums.”

Oliver sat back, his gaze now really focused on her, his interest clearly engaged. “Museums? We’re not talking about grandma’s pearl ring.”

“No,” she agreed. “Unless this grandmother was a German baroness, and the pearl is a one of a kind, twenty-kilogram natural pearl from a giant clam.”

“How much would something like that be worth?” Oliver asked.

Colette considered. The giga pearl had recently been valued at at least fifty-million euro, but it was twenty-seven kilograms. There were many factors that went in to valuing pearls, but if she had to put a number on it…

“Fifteen to thirty million euro.”

Olive and Nana both froze, Nana turning to stare at her.

“Maybe more, if there’s a story behind it.”

“A story makes something like that even more valuable?”

“If I say diamond, what do you think of?” She felt much more comfortable with this conversation now, though that feeling of dread still sat low in her stomach.

“The Hope diamond,” Nana said immediately.

“Why?”

“It’s the most expensive diamond in the world,” Oliver said.

Colette shook her head. “Top five or six. But not the most expensive. It’s well known because it’s supposedly cursed.”

“I think I remember that,” Oliver said. “Everyone who owned it died, or went bankrupt.”

Not everyone, but who cared about truth when the story was so much better?

“Have you seen the Hope diamond up close?” Nana started to pick up a tray.

“No. It’s in a museum in America. But I have had the privilege of handling some other rare diamonds.”

Landon, who was half out of his chair to go help his grandmother, turned to her with a narrowed gaze.

She smiled. Landon grimaced and sighed.

Heh.

Landon carried over the tray of food Nana had brought, and a second tray with the tea set.

“Are cursed diamonds worth more or less?” Nana asked.

“It depends, and it’s not just diamonds that have stories. Actually, there’s a charity gala at a museum in Amsterdam next month, and one of the items being loaned to the museum for the night is rumored to be the Beggar’s Pearl.”

“It’s cursed?” Nana asked.

“Of course.” Colette smiled. “A Portuguese merchant supposedly saw the massive natural pearl in a blind beggar’s basket, and offered him a loaf of bread for it. The beggar couldn’t see the bread was moldy—and in the sixteen hundreds in the West Indies I’m not sure they would have had loaves of bread, but perhaps it was casave. The merchant took the pearl to the Portuguese king, and tried to use it to buy his favor. The king took the pearl, and gave the merchant a ship, but the ship was unsound, and the king knew it. The merchant tried to sail, and the mast broke, killing him. Not long after, the king’s palace burned nearly to the ground.”

Nana made an approving sound.

“The Beggar Pearl disappeared for hundreds of years after that, and has never been sold, at least not publicly. There’s one photo, from nineteen fifty. In the picture the pearl is mounted in a filigreed gold setting on a simple gold chain. An insurance company employee supposedly took the photo of the jewelry as part of an insurance inventory, but never revealed who was insuring it.”

“Are you going to the gala to appraise it?” Nana asked.