The Brideship Wife by Leslie Howard

She's marriageable age but has found no suitors she loves.  When a man her brother-in-law needs favor from is suggested, she's not enthused but agrees to meet him.  They meet at a big party and he takes her off by herself to an island she's always wanted to see.  She didn't know there was a building there.  She also didn't know what he had in mind.  He wouldn't marry a penniless orphan, but he'd take what he could get from her...

Simon & Schuster and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you. It will be published the fifth of May.

Her sister finally gets her to tell her what happened.  To save gossip and her husband's career, she writes a letter saying the matter will be forgotten and makes her sister sign it.  The man uses it to say she's blackmailing after she tried to seduce him.  Her reputation is ruined...

Her governess from the past tells her about brideships that are going to Canada.  You don't have to marry.  There you can be your own woman.  She goes to look at land available and picks out the ground she wants.  Her one regret was the man she met and loved had to go back to England to handle his father's affairs.  He'll have to stay.  She won't return...

With her landlord's help, she gets her house built.  Then fire hits the town and when she tries to go out, a man she knows blocks the door.  He's been sent by the man that ruined her reputation.  He won't move.  She gets out her gun to threaten him and it goes off.  She still can't get out the door and runs to the window where there is a ladder down.  She gives her friend's baby to the landlord and then attempts to use the ladder herself.  She falls...

Despite all this hardship the story does have a happy ending.  The Victorian times were hard on women...