Lydia offers/agrees to take a short-duration (24hrs) love potion as a guarantee that she won't back out of her end of the current deal again.
Betelgeuse gets rid of the whatever Problem made her enter the deal in one hour flat. The next 23 hours are him realising that being loved back by Lydia is both terribly nice, and just plain terrible bc he knows it's fake. Also she'd made him agree that he won't take advantage of the situation, and while it's more of a dopely-in-love potion than a ripping-each-other's-clothes-off potion, he still has to fend her off. Which brings him to the second realisation that he truly, genuinely cares about how Lydia is gonna feel about the whole thing once the potion wears off. Followed by the third realisation that he can't marry her under the influence, because she would resent him.
Rephrase of the first part:
B: You've interrupted my after-lunch nap. I hope you have a very skinny priest hiding behind you.
L: I promise I'll marry you this time if you still want that, but, please, I need your help! A Mare has attached itself to Astrid and I can't get it to seperate from her. She won't wake up.
B: Didn't know she was a horse girl... *ouch* ok, ok, I got it. Nightmare spirit. Parasite. Easy-peasy, I could get rid of it in my sleep. Gonna need better assurance than a pinky swear if you wanna convince me you'll stick to your end of the deal for once, though.
L: Just give me a contract to sign and let's go!
B: Nope, not good enough. I don't need another loophole to ruin things.
L: I'm not marrying you until she's save. That thing is huge! We haven't got time!
B: You have time to drink this *hold up small vial of sparkly pink stuff* It'll ensure that you won't want to run from the altar.
B: Strong infantuation potion. Closest to real love you can get in a bottle. 1-hour dose. If I don't get you Astrid back to the waking world before it wears off, the wedding will be off, too.
L: How do I know that once I drink that you aren't just gonna marry me and abandon Astrid to her fate?
B: Because I wouldn't do that to you. I love you too much.
L: But you'd refuse to save my daughter and would let her suffer unless and until I marry you? You don't love me, you're just obsess-
A: *screaming in disgust* Aaaah. Mom? Moooom! There's some... thing in my bed!
B: Told you I could do it in my sleep. And I did! Before you even asked me to.
L: I'll be right down, honey!
A: Why are you in the attic?
L: What were you doing in her bedroom?
B: Ffs! I suspected that there was a Mare creeping around here after the third night in a row of me having nightmares while sleeping in your b- house. So I decided to search for it while I was in dreamland anyway. Found it with your daughter, killed it, left it's dead spirit body to detach itself from Astrid's cranium naturally. I planned to get rid of it before she woke up, but
A: MOM! CAN YOU JUST COME DOWN AND TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON!
B: THAT THING WAS A DREAM SPIRIT FEEDING ON YOUR BRAIN JUICES. IT'S DEAD NOW. YOU ARE WELCOME! GO HAVE SOME COFFEE, IT'LL HELP YOUR HEADACHE. YOUR MOM ANY ME ARE DISCUSSION ADULT STUFF.
A (faintly): Ew. You better mean taxes
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