Romancing the Countess

March (Seducing the Duchess) challenges the dramatic Victorian mourning protocols with some success in this ambitious historical. Leah George, a 20-year-old widow, knew for a year that her late husband was cuckolding his best friend, Sebastian, Earl of Wriothesley. The news is a complete shock to Sebastian, who attempts to suppress the truth, though the adulterous pair died in the same carriage accident. When Leah, sick of hypocrisy, decides to flout society's norms for grieving widows, Sebastian plays along in hopes that a seeming romance between them will scotch rumors about their spouses. The plot develops nicely to this point, and March's elegant style is a joy in a genre that often suffers from slipshod technique, but plausibility soon crumbles away as the protagonists become increasingly reckless and inconsistent. It's an intriguing effort nevertheless, and March shows promise as a prose stylist if not yet a plotter. (Sept.)