Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

two seconds ago and the screams are still backed up in my throat.”
    Archer reached for her before he remembered that all she wanted from him was protection and sex. Comfort wasn’t part of their deal. He put his hands in his pockets and turned toward the next display case. “Give it time. It will get better.”
    He walked to a new case. “Here’s another piece of pearl history. Strings of pearls that could have graced the royal treasury of India or Persia any time in the last two thousand years. Probably did, if I know Fred. The traders know that he’ll pay more than anyone else for pearls with history attached to them.”
    Hannah turned and focused on the case. There was indeed a mound of natural pearl strands, enough to make a maharajah or a prince weep. “Beautiful,” she said.
    And they were, but not to her. Not at the moment. The ugliness of man still overwhelmed her.
    “Iran has chests overflowing with strands like this. Priceless, even in the age of cultured pearls.”
    Without touching Hannah, Archer led her down a row of cabinets, pointing out some of the highlights within. Pearl-encrusted necklaces from medieval Russia and England. Persian slippers smaller than his hand that were completely covered with seed pearls. A necklace of pearls, diamonds, rubies, and amethysts that had once belonged to a Mogul princess. A tiny gold box completely framed with pearls; it was reputed to have belonged to a mistress of Henry VIII.
    “Hardly a recommendation for exclusivity,” Archer added. “He had mistresses the way some men had cups of wine.”
    Hannah didn’t say a word. She was still working hard just to cope with the present.
    “The interesting thing is that we only associate valuable pearls with salt water,” he continued, pointing to another case, “but modern appraisers of centuries-old jewelry find freshwater pearls again and again. Even today, the best of the freshwater pearls are sold as saltwater gems. We have an enduring prejudice in favor of the sea’s mystery.”
    “Exactly,” Fred said as though he and his wife hadn’t spent the past five minutes arguing with each other. “I’ve always said that freshwater pearls beat saltwater gems any day.”
    “Ha!” Becky said. “That’s foolishness and you know it. No freshwater pearl on earth can stand against a good South Seas gold.”
    “Bull,” Fred roared. “What about that natural pink pearl I bought last year from Tennessee?”
    “What about it?”
    Archer hid a smile. The Battling Linskys were off and running.
    Hannah looked at the old couple and smiled despite the turmoil of her own emotions. Their enthusiasm for an argument was matched only by their enthusiasm for each other; their love was as transparent as tears.
    “Becky handles the saltwater end of their business,” Archer said.
    “I never would have guessed,” Hannah said dryly.
    He looked at his watch, sighed, and knew it wasn’t going to be a short visit. Silently he followed Hannah down the first row of cabinets and display cases. They passed in front of a wall with photographs of the most famous pearls in history, from Western queens to Eastern potentates, all of whom were draped with huge, priceless ropes of natural pearls. There was a photo of the Hope pearl, a monster white baroque weighing in at eighteen hundred grams. There was a nod to Elizabeth Taylor’s La Peregrina, bought for her by her lover and two-time husband, Richard Burton.
    La Peregrina was a huge five-hundred-year-old pearl that had been owned by royalty. It was rumored to have been eaten by one of Taylor’s lap dogs; the pearl had emerged from the canine digestive tract a shadow of its former sizable, lustrous self. The picture on the Linskys’ wall was taken before the incident. Afterward, there probably hadn’t been much left to photograph.
    “Sad, sad story,” Fred said, materializing at Hannah’s elbow. “Pity she didn’t feed him one of her whacking great diamonds. It would have emerged unscathed. Calcium carbonate is susceptible even to mild acids such as sweat, much less to the horrific acids in a mammalian gut.”
    “I heard it was only well chewed, not swallowed,” Becky said.
    “Either way, a legendary pearl was lost. I can’t imagine anyone feeding pearls to a pet.”
    “I doubt that she fed La Peregrina to the dog.” Archer looked at his wristwatch and added, “It probably scarfed the pearl off a bedside table.”
    “Barbara Hutton fed Marie Antoinette’s pearls