She assumed that Stewart felt the same way but, in fact, the financial disparity in their relationship was causing huge tensions between the pair and, on Stewart’s part, deep-seated resentment.
Thanks to the success of her book, which was serialised in this newspaper and on BBC Radio 4, her already lucrative career was again in the ascendant.
Stewart, dressed as ever in his favourite jeans, dutifully posed alongside her for publicity shots in the garden at their new home.
But his own life, by comparison, had stagnated.
But by the time Stewart met Helen Bailey he hadn’t worked for years, blaming his unemployment on the rare auto-immune condition - myasthenia gravis - from which he suffered since the mid-1990s and which caused weakness of his facial and throat muscles.
Police sources who spoke to the Mail this week said that they believe Stewart over-egged his illness, using it as an excuse not to work.
Earning around £2,000 a month tax-free from an insurance pay-out from his last job as a computer software expert, he had no need to work – instead he played snooker or bowls or he kept himself busy at home designing websites for friends or fiddling around with DIY jobs.
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Had they married - and divorced - he would only, at best, have received half of it.
