He married Evangeline Bell (1914–1995) on April 23, 1945, three days after his divorce. She was a granddaughter of Sir Herbert Conyers Surtees, a niece of Sir Patrick Ramsay, a stepdaughter of Ambassador Sir James Leishman Dodds, and the elder sister of Virginia Surtees (who married, and divorced, Sir Henry Ashley Clarke, the British Ambassador to Italy). They had two sons and one daughter, Alexandra (called Sasha). Alexandra died under mysterious circumstances (possibly murder or suicide) in 1975 at age 29 at the Bruce family home in Virginia.