Brave to have left, my dear (7)
I believe the answer is:
darling
'dear' is the definition.
(I know that dear can be written as darling)
'brave to have left' is the wordplay.
'brave' becomes 'daring' (daring can mean adventurous or courageous).
'to have' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'daring' placed around 'l' is 'DARLING'.
'my' is the link.
This may not be correct. It may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for darling that I've seen before include "Pet" , "Term of affection" , "Film with Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde - sweetheart" , "Wendy's family (Peter Pan)" , "Grace -, nineteenth century wreck heroine of lighthouse" .)