European lying in his love-nest (7)

I believe the answer is:

slovene

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'european' is the definition.
(I know that Slovene is a type of european)

'in his love-nest' is the wordplay.
'in' indicates a hidden word.
'SLOVENE' is hidden within 'his love nest'.

'lying' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may belong to another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for slovene that I've seen before include "Southern European" , "One from Ljubljana" , "Native of Ljubljana" , "Central European" , "Language" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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