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  “It’s Dadai’s.”

  Rosalie said nothing, her heart in her eyes as the tears began to roll down her husband’s cheeks. He pressed the hat to his chest, his head bent, and closed his arms over it, hugging it to his heart.

  “It’s Dadai’s,” he said again, in a voice choked with emotion. “That bit of mending right there marks it… I—” he sucked in a deep, trembling breath—“I can’t believe this….”

  “Believe it. You’re holding your father’s message to you in your hands, Kieran.”

  A message from heaven. He looked up then, the hat held fiercely to his chest, his eyes flooded with tears. “He sent it to me. And he sent you to me, too, didn’t he? Someone to love so that I’d no longer be lonely.” He began to weep. “Oh, Rosalie….”

  She stepped into his embrace, the old tricorn pressed between their hearts as his body shook with silent sobs.

  Some time later, she quietly left him with the hat and his emotions, and made her way downstairs and outside into the fresh morning sunlight. Birds twittered in the trees overhead. Far off in the harbor, cannon sounded as a ship came up the river into port. The sounds of Newburyport, never changing, the city welcoming home yet another mariner from the sea.

  She found herself walking back across the street to the empty house. Found herself pushing open the door, and standing for a long moment in the foyer. Inside, it was still and silent, tiny bits of dust suspended in a shaft of sunlight angling in from the library window. Rosalie moved quietly into the room where the portrait of Brendan Merrick and his family at the helm of the schooner Kestrel gazed down at her, the black tricorn hat under his arm.

  The hat. That hat. The same one she’d fished out of the Caribbean, sent to her by this very man himself. The same one she could never bring herself to discard, the same one her husband was quietly weeping over in an upstairs room across the street. The same one that had brought the wind, and yes, had even brought her and Kieran together. Her husband had lamented that Connor had something from his father, a letter written shortly before he’d died, but that he’d had nothing.

  “I guess because I never caused them any trouble, he saw no reason to give me a message, too.”

  Rosalie shut her eyes on a sudden flood of tears. Oh, Kieran my love…but he did give you something. And he gave me something, too. He gave us each other.

  Miracles did indeed happen. And sometimes you didn’t even need to look for them.

  They came looking for you.

  She stood for a long moment in front of the painting, her eyes softening as she returned her father-in-law’s warm and knowing smile.

  And then she turned and closed the door behind her.

  The end

  Thank You for Reading

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  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Danelle Harmon has written seventeen critically acclaimed and award-winning books, with many being published all over the world and translated into numerous languages. She and her family make their home in New England with numerous animals including several dogs, an Egyptian Arabian horse, and a flock of pet chickens. Danelle enjoys reading, spending time with family, friends and her pets, and sailing her 19th century reproduction Melonseed skiff, Kestrel II. She welcomes email from her readers and can be reached at [email protected] or through any of the means listed below:

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  KEEP READING FOR A SPECIAL SNEAK PEEK OF

  THE WILD ONE!

  More Books from Danelle Harmon!

  Introducing:

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  DE MONTFORTE BROTHERS SERIES:

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  Book 1 – Lord Gareth de Montforte’s story

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  THE BELOVED ONE

  Book 2 – Captain Lord Charles de Montforte’s story

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  THE DEFIANT ONE

  Book 3 – Lord Andrew de Montforte’s story

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  THE WICKED ONE

  Book 4 – the Duke of Blackheath’s story

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  Book 5 – Lady Nerissa de Montforte’s story

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  CAPTAIN OF MY HEART

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  MY LADY PIRATE

  Heroes of the Sea Series – Book 3

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  TAKEN BY STORM

  Heroes of the Sea Series – Book 4

  Disgraced naval hero Colin Lord wants only to pursue his new career as a London veterinarian and put his tragic past behind him. But when fugitive heiress Lady Ariadne St. Aubyn convinces him to help get her prized racehorse to Norfolk before every reward hunter in England can catch her, Colin finds himself swept up into an adventure he could never have imagined. A treat for animal lovers everywhere!

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  WICKED AT HEART

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  LORD OF THE SEA

  Heroes of the Sea Series – Book 6

  Love, adventure and heartbreak abound in this fast-paced historical romance set in Barbados during the War of 1812 between reckless and daring American privateer Captain Connor Merrick and beautiful Rhiannon Evans, whose charms he cannot resist. Bringing back beloved characters from previous books, this is the fourth and final book in the schooner Kestrel saga.

  Original Publishing Date: December 23, 2013

  Finalist – RT 2014 Best Digital First/Indie Historical Romance

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  HEIR TO THE SEA

  Heroes of The Sea Series – Book 7

  His heart broken by grief, Captain Kieran Merrick never expects to fall in love with the unconventional, aggravating and thoroughly obnoxious Rosalie McCormack when she fires a pistol at him from the cabin of a captured merchant ship. Sparks fly between them while danger abounds, but can the daring young lady from Baltimore and the stoic New England privateer come together to defeat brutal pirates, confront tragedy, and find love in each other’s arms?

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  THE FOX AND THE ANGEL

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  MY FIRST NOEL

  Lady Katharine Farnsley has been jilted yet again. Her cold exterior masking a world of pain, she despairs of ever finding true love. But when a mysterious stranger comes to her, hurt and desperate on a snowy Christmas Eve, she never dreams that opening the door to him will change her life forever…and show her the true meaning of the season. An inspirational Christmas novella set in Danelle Harmon’s popular and enduring De Montforte world!

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  THE WILD ONE!

  Excerpt from

  THE WILD ONE

  Book 1 of the De Montforte Brothers Series

  by Danelle Harmon

  Prologue

  Newman House, 18 April, 1775

  My dear brother, Lucien,

  It has just gone dark and as I pen these words to you, an air of rising tension hangs above this troubled town. Tonight, several regiments—including mine, the King’s Own—have been ordered by General Gage, commander in chief of our forces here in Boston, out to Concord to seize and destroy a significant store of arms and munitions that the rebels have secreted there. Due to the clandestine nature of this assignment, I have ordered my batman, Billingshurst, to withhold the posting of this letter until the morrow, when the mission will have been completed and secrecy will no longer be of concern.

  Although it is my most ardent hope that no blood will be shed on either side during this endeavour, I find that my heart, in these final moments before I must leave, is restless and uneasy. It is not for myself that I am afraid, but another. As you know from my previous letters home, I have met a young woman here with whom I have become attached in a warm friendship. I suspect you do not approve of my becoming so enamoured of a storekeeper’s daughter, but things are different in this place, and when a fellow is three thousand miles away from home, love makes a far more desirable companion than loneliness. My dear Miss Paige has made me happy, Lucien, and earlier tonight, she accepted my plea for her hand in marriage; I beg you to understand, and forgive, for I know that someday when you meet her, you will love her as I do.

  My brother, I have but one thing to ask of you, and knowing that you will see to my wishes is the only thing that calms my troubled soul during these last few moments before we depart. If anything should happen to me—tonight, tomorrow, or at any time whilst I am here in Boston—I beg of you to find it in your heart to show charity and kindness to my angel, my Juliet, for she means the world to me. I know you will take care of her if ever I cannot. Do this for me and I shall be happy, Lucien.

  I must close now, as the others are gathered downstairs in the parlour, and we are all ready to move. May God bless and keep you, my dear brother, and Gareth, Andrew, and sweet Nerissa, too.

  Charles

  Sometime during the last hour, it had begun to grow dark.

  Lucien de Montforte turned the letter over in his hands, his gaze shuttered, his mind far away as he stared out the window over the downs that stood like sentinels against the fading twilight. A breath of pink still glowed in the western sky, but it would soon be gone. He hated this time of night, this still and lonely hour just after sunset when old ghosts were near, and distant memories welled up in the heart with the poignant nearness of yesterday, close enough to see yet always too elusive to touch.

  But the letter was real. Too real.

  He ran a thumb over the heavy vellum, the bold, elegant script that had been so distinctive of Charles’s style—both on paper, in thought, and on the field—still looking as fresh as if it had been written yesterday, not last April. His own name was there on the front: To His Grace the Duke of Blackheath, Blackheath Castle, nr. Ravenscombe, Berkshire, England.

  They were probably the last words Charles had ever written.

  Carefully, he folded the letter along creases that had become fragile and well-worn. The blob of red wax with which his brother had sealed the letter came together at the edges like a wound that had never healed, and try as he might to avoid seeing them, his gaze caught the words that someone, probably Billingshurst, had written on the back….

  Found on the desk of Captain Lord Charles Adair de Montforte on the 19th of April 1775, the day on which his lordship was killed in the fighting at Concord. Please deliver to addressee.

  A pang went through him. Dead, gone, and all but forgotten, just like that.

  The Duke of Blackheath carefully laid the letter inside the drawer, which he shut and locked. He gazed once more out the window, lord of all he surveyed but unable to master his own bitter emptiness. A mile away, at the foot of the downs, he could just see the twinkling lights of Ravenscombe village, could envision its ancient church with its Norman tower and tombs of de Montforte dead. And there, inside, high on the stone wall of the chancel, was the simple bronze plaque that was all they had to tell posterity that his brother had ever even lived.

  Charles, the second son.

  God help them all if anything happened to him, Lucien, and the dukedom passed to the third.

  No. God would not be so cruel.

  He snuffed the single candle and with the darkness enclosing him, the sky still glowing beyond the window, moved from the room.

  Chapter 1

  Berkshire, England, 1776

  The Flying White was bound for Oxford, and it was running late. Now, trying to make up time lost to a broken axle, the driver had whipped up the team, and the coach careered through the night in a cacophony of shouts, thundering hooves, and cries from the passengers who were clinging for their lives on the roof above.

  Strong lanterns cut through the rainy darkness, picking out ditches, trees, and hedgerows as the vehicle hurtled through the Lambourn Downs at a pace that had Juliet Paige’s hea
rt in her throat. Because of Charlotte, her six-month-old daughter, Juliet had been lucky enough to get a seat inside the coach, but even so, her head banged against the leather squabs on the right, her shoulder against an elderly gent on her left, and her neck ached with the constant side to side movement. On the seat across from her, another young mother clung to her two frightened children, one huddled under each arm. It had been a dreadful run up from Southampton indeed, and Juliet was feeling almost as ill as she had during the long sea voyage over from Boston.