‘Ah yes,’ I said gravely, ‘Monday-itis.’

‘I’ve heard it can be serious. Let me take a look.’ He led me towards the bedroom, and suddenly he didn’t look that calm any more; suddenly he had a blaze in his eyes that I’d begun to recognise. I felt my legs go rather shaky, so it was lucky that he picked me up and practically threw me on the bed. I’m glad I didn’t bother making it, was my last coherent thought.

I woke up in Seb’s arms about an hour later. My mouth felt tender and slightly bruised, my skin bore traces of his finger-marks. I felt satiated and slightly dazed. This sex had been different from any we’d had before, a tension in Seb that I’d not known before. He muttered in his sleep now, a lock of hair falling across his forehead, his wide mouth almost smiling as he dreamed.

The wind had got up while we had been distracted. Downstairs the kitchen door banged in the draught; the dying wisteria tapped against the window. I’d never felt nervous in Pendarlin, it was my true home – but recently I never seemed able to quite relax anywhere.

I reached for a cigarette but the packet on the bedside table was empty. I suddenly felt starving again. I eased myself out of bed and pulled the duvet up around Seb just as the phone rang.

I clattered downstairs to pick it up, but whoever it was had rung off by the time I reached it. Letting Digby out and putting Handel’s Messiah on the stereo, I unpacked the remains of the fish stew and whizzed it into a thick soup. I made a spinach and radicchio salad to go with the cold lamb, and then I eyed the pot of double cream left over from lunch and the half-dozen eggs we hadn’t eaten. Far too much food, as usual – I always worried my guests would go hungry, a habit I’d learned from Gar.

When Seb wandered down a while later, yawning and stretching like a cat, I was just pulling eight perfect little meringues from the oven.

‘My, my, Nigella, you have been busy.’ He kissed the tip of my nose. ‘Mmm, whipped cream. I’ll light the fire, shall I?’

I blushed happily, happier than I had been in a very long time.

After supper I switched the television on.

‘Seb,’ I called, ‘they’re about to review Love All on The 8 O’Clock Show. Quick, you might be on it.’

He strolled into the room, wine bottle in hand, Digby at his heels. ‘Top-up, babe?’

‘Thanks.’ I offered up my glass. Seb sat in the armchair and I watched him for a moment as the television bleated on in the background about Russian art.