Sheikh's Possession Read Online Free PDF Page A

shot him a wary look.
    "Look, you are getting my expertise free of charge through offering my boss your ear. You can do what you like with my information, but really, don't tell me that it's bad, not when I've spent so long getting it right."
    He raised his hands peacefully, but she could tell that there was still something amused about his expression. Some of the good feelings she had gotten from him over the last few minutes were disappearing again.
    "I did not mean to offend," he said. "It is only that my country's history has not been one that has included a great many women in it. For better or worse, Alamun women have always been very much attached to the home, whether that home was a charcoal burner's hut or a sheikh's palace."
    Berry thought for a moment. If this was a regular job, she would simply let it go. Antiques were sometimes a remarkably conservative industry, and she would rather make a sale than argue. However, she wasn't really making a sale here, and this was the Sheikh. If he kept on making assumptions like this, there might be some severe consequences down the road.
    "So … how old are you?" she asked.
    Rasul looked surprised. "I am thirty-four, if that has anything to do with anything …"
    "That makes sense. That makes you ten years older than me and at least five years older than Fatima al-Hassan and Mirah Adnan."
    He frowned a little, but she was pleased when he recognized those names. "You mean the professors of women's history at the university?"
    "They are historians," she corrected, "and over the past few years, they have done some very important work when it comes to revisiting the history of Alamun. The history that we think of as real is often written by men, and one thing that I have discovered in my trade is that men do not often pay attention to what it is that women are doing. At worst, they will certainly take credit for their work."
    Rasul scoffed, and she hung on to her temper with gritted teeth. "One of the great prides of Alamun manhood is that we protect our women. We offer them the best, and we do not force them into the world to work or to be made weary with war."
    "That sounds positively wretched to me," she said decisively, "but if you read the work done by the professors I mention, there is a long history of women working and innovating in Alamun, if only you know where to look."
    On an impulse, she lifted the statue, turning it to one side so they could see the bottom. Unlike the rest of the statue, the camel was flat there save for a maker's mark, a stylized flower underscored by two slashes.
    "Here, what do you think this is?" she asked, showing him the mark.
    "A maker's mark, I imagine," Rasul said a little impatiently. "A sign to tell you that it came from such and such's studio."
    "It might be," she agreed, "but during the period in which this statue was made, it was more likely that an individual would leave a signature rather than a company name, so to speak. Most of these signatures were made with script, so we would have a proper name. This one didn't."
    Rasul tilted his head to one side, and she could see that in spite of himself, he was interested in what she had to say. "You're saying that this is a pseudonym of some sort."
    "I am. Many women of the era had flower names. This would have been a subtle way to reference herself without drawing too much undue suspicion."
    "So this statue was cast by a renegade female brass worker?" Rasul said speculatively.
    At that, Berry had to shrug. She dearly wished that she could tell him that this was the case, but she couldn't, and at the end of the day, she believed in her very core that you sold people antiques, not wild stories.
    "I think that it is likely," she said. "I think that there is no way for us to know what really happened back then. It could be as you say, a studio mark rather than that of a specific artist. That is always possible. However, I know what I believe."
    He ran a gentle hand along the back of the camel,