Wow, lots of great interpretations here. It shows how great DS is that such completely different yet equally valid interpretations can be done.
Personally, I think Barnabas did love Angelique but rejected her initally out of class concerns, which was very realistic for the time. Barnabas courted Josette primarily thru letters, and I think that he saw her in a romaticised way. Their relationship seems more based on his ideas of courtly love than a real partnership imo. He loved her, but as they were kept apart he became obsessed with her, just as Angelique was obsessed with him.
Barnabas showed how blind he could be to real love with Julia, and was impulsive and fickle with his emotions, falling in love with one pyt after another, most of them being stand-ins for Josette. Than he really though he could hold Maggie prisoner, dress her in Josette's clothes and put her in Josette's room and make her be Josette says a lot about how Barnabas loves Josette, more like a very prized possesion than a person. At the very least the fact that Barnabas tries repeatedly to make other women become Josette shows he's very disturbed in realtion to how he views women and love.
Given how fickle Barnabas is it seems very in character for him to declare his love to Angelique once it's too late to make any difference. But it's one thing to make a foolish declarartion in a heat of passion, making that relationship work long time would've been much more difficult.
Personally, I prefer to think that Barnabas did eventually come to his senses and marry Julia, but once she's died a natural death from old age, if he were still around as an immortal vampire, it seems likely he'd fall into Angelique's arms again, at least until the next Josette look alike came along.
