@}-‘-,-‘-,---

Julia stood on the edge of the cliffs at Widows' Hill waiting for the sun to rise. If there was a spot on this estate that was hers, this was it. Wild and stark, and with a history that kept the members of the Collins family away, she often came here to be alone.

"Julia?"

She closed her eyes. Barnabas. No doubt here to ask her opinion about another empty headed child in a woman's body that had claimed his heart, or maybe help saving some member of the Collins family in the past, present, or future.

Without turning around, Julia asked, "What do you want, Barnabas?"

"Did you accept him?"

"And if I did?"

"I'm asking you to change you mind."

"Why?"

"I love you."

Julia turned to him. In the moonlight his brown hair was gray, and his face was in shadow, but she knew from experience that there would be a pleading look in his brown eyes. She knew that Daniel's antics had the potential to make Barnabas jealous, but surely not this much. For a moment she weakened. Her heart wanted to believe he really cared for her. But she was done hoping for crumbs and she steeled herself against him. Her chin lifted, her mouth a tight line. "You only want what you can't have. Now, you can't have me, can you? So now, of course, you want me."

Tears filled her eyes. "Five years of watching you fall in love again and again with the unattainable until I even had to stand by and listen to you groan with love for the woman who helped destroy everything that was dear to you. And now you want me. Well you can quit loving me. I didn't accept Daniel. And if that's all that you are here for, you can relax and go back home."

"Why? Why did you turn him down?"

Julia looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Because I didn't love him enough."

Barnabas bowed his head. "Not because you were in love with someone else?"

Julia turned back to the sea. "Who would I be in love with?"

"Me?"

Julia turned toward Barnabas, her chin raised in anger. "All right. I love you. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Barnabas' eyes opened wide as he looked at her, but before he could say anything, Julia turned and began to walk back toward Collinwood. "But don't let it give you any ideas, because I wouldn't have you either."

Julia moved only a few steps before, blinded by tears, she stopped. Choking back a sob, she pled with him, "Go away and leave me alone. And if you think I’m crying over you, I’m not…” Julia turned her tear filled eyes to Barnabas. “I didn’t want to turn him down, not again.”

His arms reached out and pulled her to him, even as she fought him. "Julia, I love you. I know that you don't believe me, now, but I do."

She quit fighting and leaned against Barnabas, letting the rough wool of his Inverness dry the tears on her cheek. She inhaled the scent of him. One last memory before she pushed him away. "Then prove it to me."

@}-‘-,-‘-,---

Barnabas sat before the fire staring into the flames, the unread book lying on his knees. The fact that it was well past sun up and the candles were still lit, and that he had neglected to go to bed at all, seemed to have slipped his mind.

He got up and began to pace the room. Didn't Julia understand what he was offering to her? His name, his home, his protection, and what would he get in exchange? Arguments with breakfast, where a younger woman would hang on his every word, challenges instead of children, evenings of defending his opinions instead of quiet reflection alone by his fire. Thank God, she had turned him down.

He sat down in his chair and smiled. There he had her out of his system. He opened his book, and then staring into the fire again, lay it down on his lap unread.

How on earth could he prove his love for her?

@}-‘-,-‘-,---

Julia slowly undressed, her drapes closed to give the illusion of night. She felt better for her outburst and now that her secret was out, she was more at peace with herself than she had been in a long time. She slipped her nightgown over her head and took the extra blanket from the foot of her bed. As she passed the table, she stopped and pulled out a rose from the center, and brought it to her nose. She really should be offended with how well that Daniel had taken her third rejection of him. But they both knew that too much had changed between them to marry now.

Pulling the blanket around her like a hug, she smiled as she sat down and began to rock. Even though Barnabas had been practically tricked into it, he had proposed to her. Her smile turned to a grin. She inhaled the scent of the rose, running her finger down the stem to touch the thorns. In all the times that she had daydreamed a proposal from the biggest, most painful thorn in her life, never once had she turned him down.

The knock on her door was soft, and not wanting to interrupt her waking dreams she didn’t answer it, but when the door opened and Carolyn stuck her head in looking for her in the empty bed, she called to her. “I’m over here.”

“You don’t mind do you?” Carolyn said as she started a fire in the fireplace. “These rooms are always so draughty, even with the central heat.”

She pulled her robe tighter around her and took up her former place on the bed. “Did he ask you?” She saw the rose in Julia’s hand and smiled brightly. “He did ask and from the glow in your eyes you accepted him. Didn’t you?”

Julia began to laugh, low and melodic. “I had two proposals, from two different men. And I turned them both down.”

Knowing that Carolyn would never leave now without the rest of the story, Julia began to tell her all.

@}-‘-,-‘-,---

Barnabas donned his Inverness and took up his cane. In the three days since he had made a fool of himself proposing to Julia, he had come to realize that she was right. He had only wanted to marry her because he was afraid of losing her. Now that he had seen her over the last few days and had ascertained that she was staying at Collinwood, and Daniel was returning to his home, wherever it was, he could relax and get back to his old pursuits, maybe find a wife, settle down.

He hesitated at the front door before knocking. What if Julia wasn't home? He frowned. What if she wasn’t home, it wasn’t as though he was here to see her. He was here to meet Maggie’s friend. He was moving on with his life. He’d show Julia.

Barnabas was enjoying the evening. Of course he was enjoying it. What man wouldn’t enjoy a delicious dinner and the company of a young beautiful woman with big brown adoring eyes? And to have the enjoyment witnessed by the very woman who should see that he was well and truly over her, his enjoyment was complete. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. If only the enjoyment wasn’t so long.

"And so I told him that I wouldn’t want to drive a yellow Gremlin. Can you picture me in a yellow car? With my complexion? And a Gremlin…What do you think, Mr. Collins?" asked the friend whose name Barnabas couldn't quite remember.

Barnabas quickly suppressed his first thought that it was incredible that a young woman could be as vacuous as she was, and said, “I’m sure you would look lovely in any color and the car that you rode in whatever the make would be a lucky car.”

The woman brightly smiling said, “Oh Mr. Collins, Maggie said that you had an old world charm, but I thought she just meant you were old.” She blinked her eyes. “You are charming.”

A laugh quickly turned into a cough from across the table drew the attention of the young woman. “Are you all right Dr. Hoffman? You didn’t choke on something, did you?”

Barnabas frowned and gave a quick glare at Julia, who wiped the smile off her mouth with a napkin and answered. “It was just something that I found a little hard to swallow. I’m fine now.”

Her changeable eyes, green with amusement, met Barnabas' brown ones, and he smiled. This really was nonsensical. He didn't want to try to make Julia jealous as Carolyn had encouraged him to do. He only wanted to prove that he loved her.

As his mind working at the puzzle of how loved could be proved, he turned back to the young woman and with a look that would have melted a cold heart began to talk to the young woman.

@}-‘-,-‘-,---

Barnabas opened the door to Josette’s room. For too long it had been a shrine to a love that could never be. Julia was right. He sought the unattainable. Even with Angelique, he never believed that she could truly change and that their love could last. He looked up at the portrait of Josette. “You tried to free me. Now I am free.”

He looked at the music box sitting below the portrait on the mantle. It was the music box that he had given to Josette so many years ago, and then to Vicki, and last to Kitty. He opened it and listened to its nostalgic tune once again. At one time it had been a symbol of his love. He turned it over, and spilled out the ring that Josette had given back to him into the palm of his hand. It twinkled brightly at him. He knew now how to prove his love.

@}-‘-,-‘-,---

Julia raised her head from her paperwork and called, “Come in.”

Carolyn came into Julia’s bedroom, still wearing her coat and an aura of the chilly outdoors air, “Julia, you won’t believe what Barnabas has done!”

Julia held up her hand to pause Carolyn in an attempt to look nonchalant, and then raised her eyebrows in question.

“Barnabas gave mother the painting of Josette Collins!”

“He gave it to Liz? Are you sure?”

Carolyn gave her a grin. “All legal and everything, he signed it over to her. She’s talking of hanging it in the gallery with the portrait of Jeremiah.”

Julia stood up and crossed to the window, looking out toward the Old House. “Did she tell Barnabas that?”

“Yes, and he said that he’d help her hang it, if Uncle Roger can’t.”

Carolyn continued talking, but Julia didn’t hear what she was saying. When she had told Barnabas to prove his love, she had thought that she had given him an impossible task. She had expected the usual proofs that men gave, flowers and chocolates, and even candlelight dinners for two, and had dreaded that from Barnabas, they would be meaningless tokens to buy her love. But Barnabas had understood. She smiled. He truly loved her.

@}-‘-,-‘-,---

“Happy Birthday to you,

“Happy Birthday to you,

“Happy Birthday, dear Amy,

“Happy Birthday to you.

Amy closed her eyes and made a wish and then blew out her candles to applause. As Mrs. Johnson took the cake back into the kitchen to cut and serve it, Amy turned to Liz and asked, “Please, please can I open my gifts first.”

“May I?”

“May I?”

At Liz’s smiling nod, Amy took off for the drawing room with David close behind her.

Julia found her way toward Barnabas. “Carolyn said that you gave away Josette’s portrait.”

Barnabas took Julia’s hand and pulled her arm through his, and started toward the drawing room. “I’m thinking of redecorating and I don’t think I’ll need it any more.”

“You gave it away for me, didn’t you? You could have kept it. Putting it away in the attic would have been enough.”

Barnabas shook his head. “A wise doctor once told me to put aside the past, and because I love her, I’m going to do just that.”

As they got to the drawing room door, a girlish squeal greeted them. “Barnabas, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Amy.”

Amy pulled Barnabas down to kiss his cheek, and then opened the top of the music box to play the haunting melody as she hurried back to show off her new toy.

Julia felt it hard to breathe. “How did you get Josette’s music box back? I thought you told me that Kitty took it with her into the portrait?”

Barnabas flushed slightly. “The night that we had the séance, and through Maggie, Josette told me to come to her grave...I went there.”

“I know. You said that she told you that she wasn’t a prisoner of the Leviathans.”

“But I never told you what else she had said to me. That night she tried to free me from the past. She gave me…she gave me something that was a sign that I was free, and when she disappeared, the music box was lying on the ground. No, the box wasn’t a sign of my freedom, and I think I know why, for when I saw it, I couldn’t help but think of when I saw it last, in Kitty’s hands, and of an earlier time, when I had given it to Vicki. I put it in my pocket, and later put it away as a remembrance.”

“And now you gave it away to Amy?”

Barnabas nodded his head. “It means nothing to me compared to you.”

He looked over where Amy was sitting alone reading the book that Liz had bought her. “Besides, she reminds me of you, of what you must have been like as a child.”

He reached up and touched a red curl at the side of her face, the skin of his fingers warm, and too quickly dropping away. “Long red curls, a serious child too much alone, I’d like to be able to go back and make you happy even then.”

Barnabas squeezed her arm to his side and steered her away from the party. “I’ve two more proofs to give you, but not here.”

He helped her into her coat, and guided her out into the night.

“Come with me.”

Barnabas led Julia to the bench where just a month before Daniel had proposed to her, and sat her down, and knelt before her. Julia’s heart beat in her mouth. From beneath the bench he brought out a white rose bud on a long stem. “Roxanne was an attempt to recapture what I had lost. And because of her, I give you this rose. It’s white because my love is pure, a bud because our love is yet a hope. The thorns are there, because I understand now the pain that I’ve caused you.”

Barnabas took a knife and carefully removed each thorn and handed the rose to Julia. Tears in her eyes, she took the rose. Barnabas took her free hand, and held it in his.

“I love you, with my heart and with my soul, and God willing, one day with my body. To show you that Angelique means nothing to me, and never will, I say these words that I never said willingly to her. I love you. Will you marry me?”

Julia nodded. “I will.”

Barnabas took a ring from his pocket. “This ring was Josette’s.”

Julia swallowed bitter disappointment. She knew she was being small minded, but she couldn't help thinking that every time she showed her engagement ring, or looked at her finger she would be reminded of his past, and so would he. He hadn’t changed as much as she hoped, or he needed.

He took her right hand and removed the ring already there. “Barnabas, that’s the wrong hand.”

He shook his head, and slipped the ornate ring with its large main stone and diamonds encircling it on her finger stopping halfway down. “I didn’t believe Josette when she said that there was someone for me in my future. She gave me this ring back as a sign of my freedom, and bid me to give it to this woman I would come to love.” He pushed the ring all the way down. “I give you my freedom and my past.”

Barnabas took her left hand and pulled a second ring from his pocket, a traditional engagement ring with a diamond on a gold band, and repeated the placing of the ring with these words, “And now I give my present and my future.”

Julia threw her arms around Barnabas’ neck pressed her lips to his. He held her tight. “Have I proved my love?”

Julia answered, “More than words can tell.” And told him all he needed to know with her kiss.

@}-‘-,-‘-,---

Daniel’s voice was filled with amusement, when Julia said hello.

“Julia. Will you marry me?”

Julia laughed and turned to look at Barnabas. “I don’t think my husband would like that.”

Daniel’s laughter came across the wires and over the room to Barnabas. “I thought he was going to hang up on me instead of calling you to the phone.”

Julia smiled, taking a sidelong look at Barnabas glaring at the single rose sitting in a vase on the mantelpiece.

“I got your rose.”

“Ah, that explains it. I told them no thorns. Were there any?”

Julia looked across at Barnabas and smiled a smile that held a promise that soothed Barnabas’ impatience. “No more thorns.”

“That’s as it should be.”

They talked about Cheri, about the weather, about Julia’s new marriage, and Daniel’s new lady friend, and then when the phone call was over, Julia hung up the phone, and crossed the room to Barnabas’ waiting arms.

@}-‘-,-‘-,---

* quote from Anne Bronte's "The Narrow Way"