Piper has completed work on a BBC version of Philip Pullman's historical novel "The Ruby in the Smoke" broadcast in December 2006, Piper played main character Sally Lockhart, a Victorian orphan. The BBC plans to film all four of Pullman's Sally Lockhart novels, with Piper continuing in the role in "The Shadow in the North" which was shown in December 2007. In 2007 she appeared as the main character, Fanny Price, in an adaptation of Jane Austen's novel "Mansfield Park", screened on ITV1. This was her first acting role on television for a broadcaster other than the BBC.