This book did not resonate with me. I do really like this author and have read other books by her, but I did not enjoy this

I'm a small handful of librarians inhabiting the planet who does not have an undergraduate degree in English. No, mine is in history - and I spent the better part of four years working on a concentration in British history. This being said, I'm fairly hopeless when it comes to anything prior to the Tudors. I like reading medieval romances, but medieval history never captured my imagination in the same way that, say, the Victorian era did.

Which is why I appreciate how Blythe Gifford writes about the time period. She has this way of infusing her stories with the history without 1) writing dull textbook treatises or 2) hopelessly confusing the reader. While reading Rumors at Court, I'll admit, I ran off to Wikipedia early on to brush up on the Duke of Lancaster's timeline but after that I sunk right into the story and let it carry me away.

Valerie of Florham is a widow and she thanks God for that fact. Hers was not a happy marriage. Her husband was abusive and was not faithful. Adding insult to injury, she failed to conceive - and a child is something Valerie so desperately wants. Her husband's death means she has been summoned to London where the Duke of Lancaster (now calling himself My Lord of Spain) has wed Constanza of Castile. The Duke was hopelessly in love with his first wife, Blanche, but his second marriage is strictly strategic. He knows he is unlikely to ever sit on the throne of England and our boy has ambition. So he weds the exiled Constanza which gives him a claim to the throne of Castile. All he has to do now is wage a war to take it.

This would be where Sir Gil Wolford comes in. She served the Duke faithfully fighting in France. He is a trusted knight, and has the Duke's ear. He was also Valerie's husband's commanding officer and he wishes to meet the widow to return something she gave her husband before he rode off into battle. A small scrap of beautiful silk. Imagine his horror when he meets Valerie and she spurns the silk. Um, yeah. She gave her husband no such thing. So here's poor Gil, offering back the token to the wife that some mistress gave her husband. Oopsie doodle.

What follows is a story about two people who lack agency - because, to be frank, very few people had agency during this time. If you weren't at the mercy of the Court, you were at the mercy of the Vatican. Valerie lives in fear that the Duke will decree she take another husband and given the dumpster fire that her first marriage was, she's not exactly in a rush. All she wants is to go home, to tend her small garden, to work the land. Gil is a man who has a home, but it's one he spurns. His family's history is unsavory to the point of ugly. He's damaged goods. It's what has driven him to be a fierce warrior, that blind hope that people will forget what blood runs through his veins. His greatest wish? To take Castile for the Duke and live there permanently - a land where nobody knows his name.

We all know where this going, right? The Duke eventually decrees that Valerie and Gil will marry. Valerie resigning herself to be controlled by yet another man, and fearful because her only memories of marriage are horrid. Gil wants a family, desires a wife, and he is attracted to Valerie. But she's a puzzle, wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in an enigma - and he has no idea how to reach her.

Secondary storylines come into play surrounding the Duke, his mistress Katherine (a friend of Valerie's) and Constanza, who is pregnant by the Duke when this story opens. As Gil prepares for war, Valerie is making herself indispensable to Constanza, and looking for a way to return to her home - even as it seems inevitable that she will marry Gil and end up in Castile.

There's a nice mix of external and internal conflict to this romance, but even with all the drama surrounding court life, this is a quiet story. Valerie and Gil are both characters with deep insecurities and fears who must learn to trust and be open with each other. Gil is a fearsome knight with a fearsome reputation, but his gentleness with Valerie make this a movingly sweet romance. And Valerie, with Gil's understanding, has to learn to find her voice. Gil makes decisions over the course of this story that will break her heart, but as they come together, as they learn to trust, Valerie and Gil find their way to each other and carve out their own path to happiness.

Final Grade = B

Miss Bates is a fan of Gifford’s medieval-set romances. Rumors is set among the machinations and intrigue of Edward III’s court. One of Gifford’s many appeals is her hero’s and heroine’s place among royalty and aristocracy. Though not of peasant descent, they are always subject to the whims of the royals they serve. Decisions are made for them, even by benign lords and masters such as the ones featured in Rumors.

The romance opens as John of Gaunt, Edward III’s third son, marries Constance of Castile and becomes, in potentia, King of Castile (once he wins it back from the present king). Gifford’s hero, Sir Gilbert Wolford is a man of war who yearns to return to Castile, retake the kingdom, and make his life there. Gifford’s heroine is the widowed Lady Valerie Scargill. John decides one of his greatest warriors, Gilbert, should marry, and who better than the genteel Lady Valerie. Valerie and Gilbert both have reasons for being averse to this marriage, but the royal’s word is law and their lives not their own. They agree to marry, despite the emotional impediments to their marriage becoming a love-match.

Rumors At Court is a slow-moving, melancholic romance, yet one Miss Bates enjoyed. Valerie and Gilbert are unhappy; their HEA, quietly happy, but hard-won and worthy of celebration. Valerie’s sadness doesn’t stem from her recent widowhood, but from lack of sorrow for her husband’s death. Sir Ralph Scargill was an abusive cheat. Valerie’s barren state only brought on more of his contempt and abuse. Her solace was her land, inherited from her mother, and tended with love and knowledge until she is summoned to tend John’s new wife and “queen”, Constance of Castile. Gilbert’s unhappiness originates in his mother’s family’s criminal, blasphemous reputation. He has worked, in the royals’ military service, to make up for it his whole life and works equally hard to maintain the chivalric code. When he and Valerie are affianced and eventually married, her fear and close-mouthed stiffness clash with his private shame, “his tainted past,” and wish to honour and protect Valerie of the “sad, dark eyes.” Gifford beautifully renders the unfolding of their mutual care and understanding.

Gifford is a fine writer, subtly and gently developping Gilbert and Valerie’s blossoming relationship. Rumors At Court is not a sexy romance, where hero and heroine connect emotionally via physical congress. The love scenes are few and closed-door; Valerie, after Scargill’s abuse, is a puzzling, reluctant lover. Valerie and Gil’s love is established with conversation, where they seek to understand each other to enable them to build a life together; one of the loveliest, this exchange:

“So, again, what do you like to do?” He hoped, desperately, that it would be something he knew something of … Puzzlement. As if no one had ever asked her the question. And then, she paused, thinking, taking his question as genuine.

“I like to grow things,” she said, finally, with a nod of her head.

“Grow?” She had already spoken of crops. What could she mean now? “Like herbs?” Her cheeks reddened.

“Flowers” A smile. Soft, involuntary. “I like to grow flowers.”

“Flowers.” The word lay before him like a weapon he did not know how to wield … “And why do you like flowers?” How witless he sounded. But at his interest, the dreamy smile on her face turned to joy.

“It seems God created them only to make us glad.”

Gifford’s concise, simple language encompasses much. We witness a light of mutual understanding, Valerie’s sadness turn to joy at Gil’s attention and interest, and, most beautifully at the end, the medieval consideration of God in all things.

Gifford’s Rumors At Court will not rock your romance world. It is a tale of two mature, wounded souls finding love and a sense of belonging, making their way to healing and a happy home. It is, in turn, cognizant of their lives’ precariousness at the whim of war and royal privilege. Whether by class or gender, or both, Gifford tells of a time where even the luckiest, those with position, land, and comfort, had very little choice. Yet, she creates, in this historical context, a couple who freely choose each other. With Miss Austen, Miss Bates finds in Rumors At Court, “a mind lively and at ease,” Emma.

Blythe Gifford’s Rumors At Court is published by Harlequin Books. It was released in April and may be procured from your preferred vendor. Miss Bates received an e-ARC from Harlequin Books, via Netgalley.

I think my love for historical romance is pretty well-known to anyone who reads my reviews by now, but I admit to a particular soft spot for historical romances that weave in actual historical personages and events into the storyline. Sharon Kay Penman's Welsh Princes trilogy is perhaps the most shining example of the type, and if you enjoyed those, you'll absolutely love this.

Rumors at Court (though it should be Rumours with a u, this is set in England) is centred around a fictional couple, Valerie of Florham and Sir Gil Wolford. Valerie is a lady-in-waiting to Constanza, rightful Queen of Castile, lately married to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, a son of Edward III - and the father of the Lancastrian dynasty which included Henry IV, V and VI, AND the father of the York and Tudor dynasties, father to a Queen of Portugal AND a Queen of Castile.

(John of Gaunt was a busy kinda guy, and one of my favourite historical figures).

Constanza takes a liking to Valerie, recently widowed, and takes her into her household. Valerie's former husband was a brutish sort and she is more than happy to serve the queen rather than be ordered to marry again.

Sir Gil Wolford is one of John of Gaunt's most trusted knights, a capable warrior and commander. Ordered to marry Valerie, he is aware that neither of them have any choice, but is still determined to treat her gently and respectfully.

The story follows Valerie and Gil over the space of a year or so, from an (awkward) first meeting, through growing respect between them, to their eventual marriage and beyond. They were separated for weeks and months at a time due to the fact that they were at both at the mercy of the whims of their monarchs, and the story does not gloss over this fact.

Blythe Gifford has a deft way with words, taking a story that is in many ways rather melancholic (John of Gaunt was in love with a lady named Katherine Swynford, who was also in Constanza's household... AWKWARD) and giving it a hopeful air, making Gil and Valerie front and centre in the story. That's no easy feat considering the other extremely compelling characters in the narrative.

I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to reading Blythe Gifford's other works. She really knows her history and she weaves a compellingly realistic tale of love in the Middle Ages.

Five stars.