You Belong to My Heart Read Free Page A

maker.
    Anna Knight was summoned to Longwood and her services engaged. Soon she had completed the first of what would be many exquisite ball gowns for her distinguished young client. With orders for her work growing rapidly and many more gowns to be made, Anna Knight was pressed for time.
    So she was forced to call on her young son to help out.
    A bright, dependable child, Clayton acted older than his six years. Of necessity he’d had to grow up quickly, to accept responsibilities other children his age never faced.
    Anna Knight was a very smart and sensitive woman. Never had she said a derogatory word about Clayton’s dead father. She had, in fact, bent over backward to tell the son who’d never known his father what a charming, likable man Jackson Knight had been.
    At the same time, she cleverly guided the impressionable little boy toward a path in life never sought by his father. In subtle, simple ways she demonstrated to Clayton the value of honesty and commitment and honest work. She taught him the meaning of respect, showed him the satisfaction that came from seeing a job well done.
    She pointed often to the portrait of the white-haired, grim-faced admiral above the fireplace. She told Clayton of his grandfather’s valor and how he should be proud to be the grandson of the commodore.
    A shy, sweet-natured little boy, Clayton was happy, healthy, and well adjusted. Eagerly he said yes—just as always—when his busy mother asked if would run a very important errand for her.
    Clayton listened attentively as Anna Knight gave him clear, easy-to-understand instructions on how to get to Longwood. Cautioning him—just as always—not to speak to strangers or to stray off the path she had laid out for him, she sent her only child to the stately white mansion on the bluffs of the Mississippi to deliver a ball gown she’d just completed.
    Pale gray eyes alert in his tanned face, short arms wrapped around the big flat box, Clayton obediently walked straight to Longwood. Once there he climbed the front steps of the mansion. Before he reached the tall front doors, a little girl with white-blond hair dashed onto the shaded gallery.
    She smiled at him.
    He smiled back.
    His was a snaggle-toothed smile. His two front teeth were missing. The little girl thought that was very funny, so she laughed. He laughed, too.
    Clayton Knight had just met Mary Ellen Preble.

3
    M ARY ELLEN AND CLAY instantly became friends.
    As the years went by they spent many an hour playing together and no one paid much attention. They were, after all, only children. Their close friendship went mostly unheeded by the grownups. No one saw any reason to worry about their childish devotion to each other.
    Clay was frequently at Longwood, as was his mother. Anna Knight now sewed for only a handful of lucky ladies. One of those privileged few was Julie Preble, so it was necessary for Anna to spend a great deal of time with the mistress of Longwood for consultations and fittings.
    Julie Preble was so delighted to be one of Anna’s select clients, she treated the gifted seamstress more like an honored guest than a hired dressmaker. At Longwood Anna was not expected to use the servants’ entrance as she was at the mansions of her other clients. Julie Preble had instructed the servants that Anna Knight was always to be admitted through the fan-lighted front doors and ushered into the opulent front parlor.
    Both John Thomas and Julie Preble liked the uncomplaining Anna Knight and felt sorry for her, that though she’d been born a respectable Tigart, with her marriage she had sunk to a much lower station in life.
    The Prebles also liked Anna’s well-behaved, mannerly young son. No one objected as the energetic youngsters romped freely about, unchaperoned and unwatched. The pair, everyone agreed, got along famously, and wasn’t that wonderful? The Prebles knew they needn’t worry when their only daughter was with Clay. Clayton Knight was a responsible young boy;