A/N: In the movies and the novelizations of them, it seems that Hillary is the only domestic servant at the manor (we do see a stable boy in TRII). That would leave him with a feckload to do.
"Cold enough for you, dearie?" the gentle-faced old lady at the till would ask, whenever Hillary made the trip into town for supplies. She had been working at the store for as long as Hillary could remember, and had always been terribly kind, and so Hillary made the effort to bite back the response he wanted to make - "It's far too cold for any halfway sane human being, so would you please just shut up about it, you batty old woman?"
The effort increased as February marched inexorably on. It was an unusually cold winter. Biting winds whistled around the old stonework of Croft Manor. It was a proud old house, but one that had been built more with pride in mind than insulation. It would be madness to try to heat the place in the winter, and therefore the inside of the house was only warm in relation to the outside. Lara spent more time than usual in her study, so Hillary would wake long before the sun rose to build a fire in it, ensuring the study would be bright and warm when Lara finished her morning exercises and settled down to work.
The normal domestic workload, not a minor one to begin with, seemed doubled, and Hillary had just enough time to check on supplies and make a list of what was needed before bringing Lara her morning tea. Then a check of the groundskeepers and stable boys who lived in the area, making sure they were well and were well-supplied. Afterwards, a check of the horses, making sure the stable boys were doing their jobs, making sure that the horses had their exercise, feed, water, and clean bedding. The winter stables were warm and full of the heady smell of livestock, and Hillary was often tempted to stay there - or even drag Bryce along with him to one of the inspections, hauling him up to the hayloft afterwards. But no; youthful experience had taught him that sex in a hayloft was more romantic in theory than in practice. The dust was particularly good at eliciting sneezes, and blades of hay would stick in all kinds of uncomfortable places.
Besides, there was no time. There was Lady Croft's lunch to be made and served, rooms to be cleaned in their rotation, and supplies to be bought if needed. Laundry to be done, supper to be made, Lara to be prodded to leave the rest of her work for another day (they were typically ignored), and, before bed, taps to be checked, to ensure that just enough water was dripping through to ensure the pipes would not freeze, and containers set to collect the drips for later use. Then, finally, back to his room.
Bryce's trailer was much warmer than the manor; Hillary did not know how the metal tablet could hold in heat so well. It must be something Bryce had done to it in the past; he had lived out of it for years, after all. It was tempting to stomp across the frozen grounds and enjoy a little warmth, of more than one kind, instead of stripping as quickly as possible in a room cold enough to make his breath come out in white plumes, diving into bed and shivering a pocket of warmth under the blankets before falling asleep. But Hillary knew that, as things were, he would be good for little more than an embrace and a few tired kisses, and did not feel like frustrating either of them. And so he fell asleep to the whistle of wind through cracks in other parts of the old stone manor, before waking early to start the process all over again.
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Bryce decided, for the umpteenth time that day, that he hated February. With a passion. The entire month could just go fucking hang.
January had been bearable, with the memories of December still fresh. Heady seasonal revelry; even for an atheist, it was great fun, with Lara putting aside her work for a while and throwing some lovely parties at the manor. The parties had a staggering variety of people with very interesting tales - and interesting clothes, and interesting bodies. Bryce would mingle, taking his fill of the variety, telling horribly exaggerated stories to anyone who would listen. There would, of course, be even more satisfying moments as the party wound down; drunken, eggnog-flavored kisses, followed by drunken, eggnog-flavored sex, and a warm body next to his. Well, not just any warm body, of course. The one he found himself next to less and less as January gave way to February and the weather grew bitter, and if that wasn't reason enough to hate a month, he'd like to know what was.
He could just head over to the manor in the evenings, if he felt like it - but it was bloody cold over there, and he had enough frustration as it was without adding to it a night spent in a warm pocket of air, one that left his nose exposed to be cold outside, being sleepily nuzzled by someone who wouldn't even get as far as an apology before falling into gentle, quiet snores. So Bryce remained where he was. He would rarely even bother to go to the manor for meals, spending an entertaining day or so living on cigarettes and whiskey before finding a well-wrapped bundle of food resting on his trailer's doorstep, and would it be too much trouble for the deliverer of the bundle to step inside for a moment? Bryce would not have to unwrap the butler too much from his stiffly formal clothing in order to get his mouth on the man's cock, after all. But yes, apparently it was too much trouble, and so Bryce sat in his trailer in the evenings, watching the light from one window in the manor flash on briefly, then shut off again for the night.
Bryce would stay up until the early hours of the morning, inventing more and more inventive ways to curse February. He'd fall back into his bed, thinking about just staying there; cocooning himself in a metal pod and waiting for spring.
Fuck February.